[Infowarrior] - Renault Espionage Gained No Key Secrets, Official Says

[Richard Forno]

January 8, 2011
Renault Espionage Gained No Key Secrets, Official Says

By DAVID JOLLY

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/global/09renault.html

PARIS — A top executive at Renault said over the weekend that “nothing critical” appeared to have been stolen from the automaker’s electric vehicle program in an industrial espionage case that prompted the company to suspend three executives this week.

A French official, meanwhile, sought to play down the possibility of Chinese involvement in the matter, saying the government would wait for the results of an investigation.

In an interview published Saturday in the French newspaper Le Monde, Patrick Pelata, Renault’s chief operating officer, said that an internal investigation that began in August had led the company to conclude it was the target of “a system organized to collect economic, technological and strategic information to serve interests abroad.”

That system, he said, involved the three executives suspended on Monday. No one has been charged, but the company’s top lawyer said Wednesday that legal action was “inevitable.” Renault has not identified the executives, though it said one was a member of the management committee.

The internal investigation showed that “not the smallest nugget of technical or strategic information on the innovation plan has filtered out of the enterprise,” Mr. Pelata said, “including the nearly 200 patents for which we have applied or are in the process of applying. Those concern, in particular, electrode chemistry, battery architecture, assembly, charging and the motor itself.”

“We are serene,” Mr. Pelata told the newspaper. “Nothing critical seems to have gotten out.”

On Friday, Bernard Carayon, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s U.M.P. party and head of the Parliament’s economic intelligence working group, said “several, usually reliable sources” within the French government believed that a Chinese intermediary was behind the episode.

On Saturday morning, though, Eric Besson, the French industry minister, told Europe 1 radio “at this stage, I can’t say” whether Chinese interests were involved. “Only a full investigation could tell,” he added.

French officials may be wary of antagonizing Beijing at a time when French industry is counting on exports to the Chinese market to keep its economy growing. European Union officials have also welcomed China’s recent expressions of support for the embattled euro.

On Thursday, Mr. Besson described the case as “economic warfare.”

In the Le Monde interview, Mr. Pelata also said a Renault project with the French Atomic Energy Commission to develop “the battery of the future” was not affected.

“In short, we intervened in time,” he said, though information about the architecture of the electric vehicles, the program costs and the business plan might have leaked.

As for who was behind the attempt on its secrets, Mr. Pelata said, “Renault is the victim of an organized international network.”

Under Carlos Ghosn, Renault and its partner Nissan Motor, of which it owns about 44 percent, are investing 4 billion euros ($5.16 billion) to develop electric cars, putting the alliance at the forefront of the industry push into the technology. Mr. Ghosn is chief executive of both companies.

Nissan and Renault both declined to comment.

The lawyer for Mathieu Tenenbaum, one of the executives facing the accusations, said late Friday that his client was “stupefied” that the company was accusing him of industrial espionage and that he denied the charge.