An executive from Technic Inc., a Rhode Island-based chemical and plating company, has pled guilty to hatching a scheme to destroy the trade secrets of a competing company in a desperate attempt to prevent the loss of a business deal Technic had with leading chipmaker Intel Corp.
The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York announced the guilty plea of Robert A. Schetty III, a VP of Technicto conspiring to destroy trade secrets of a competitor.
According to the court proceedings, while employed at Technic’s advanced technology division in Plainview, Long Island, Schetty supervised research, development, and marketing of Technic’s electroplating products. In 2004, Technic sold an electroplating solution to Intel for use in the microchip coating process.
Intel, in turn, used a subcontractor, Amkor Technology, to assemble and package Intel’s microchips, and to test the chemicals used in the electroplating process at its facility in the Philippines.
In January 2005, Intel began qualification testing at Amkor’s Philippines facility for a new electroplating solution, ST380, a “trade secret” formula developed by what the court described as “one of Technic’s primary competitors”, Rohm and Haas Co.
Fearing that Technic would lose its electroplating business with Intel, Schetty admitted that he and others sabotaged the qualification testing by contaminating and destroying two baths of ST380 during the testing process.
Schetty faces a maximum sentence of ten years imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a US$250,000 fine. In addition, pursuant to a plea agreement with the government, Schetty has agreed to make restitution to Rohm and Haas in the amount of US$15,536.
The Technic case is not the only legal battles attached to Intel’s name in recent days that deal with the alleged stifling of competition. Recently, the European Commission wrapped a six-year investigation into Intel’s business practices, and charged the chipmaker with abusing its dominant position in an attempt to allegedly exclude its main rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc., from market success.