According to the FBI's Detroit Office, Xiang Dong Yu, the former Ford employee charged with stealing trade secrets and fleeing to China, pleaded guilty yesterday to in federal court to two counts of theft of trade secrets. Last October, Yu was arrested and indicted at Chicago O'Hare Airport, after arriving on a flight from China.
According to the plea agreement in this case, Yu was a product engineer for the Ford Motor Company from 1997 to 2007 and had access to Ford trade secrets, including Ford design documents. In December 2006, Yu accepted a job at the China branch of a U.S. company. On the eve of his departure from Ford and before he told Ford of his new job, Yu copied some 4,000 Ford documents onto an external hard drive, including sensitive Ford design documents. Included in those documents were system design specifications for the engine/transmission mounting subsystem, electrical distribution system, electric power supply, electrical subsystem and generic body module, among others. Ford spent millions of dollars and decades on research, development, and testing to develop and continuously improve the design specifications set forth in these documents. The majority of the design documents copied by the defendant did not relate to his work at Ford. On December 20, 2006, the defendant traveled to the location of his new employer in Shenzhen, China, taking the Ford trade secrets with him. On January 2, 2007, Yu e-mailed his Ford supervisor from China and informed him that he was leaving Ford’s employ.
As part of the plea agreement, Yu faces up to 78 months in prison and fines from 50-100 million dollars. Yu is scheduled for sentencing on February 23, 2001.
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