CHICAGO —
Judge says scheme cost Illinois company $214 million in lost profits.
A federal judge in Chicago has ordered a Chinese telecommunications company to pay a $50 million criminal fine for conspiring to steal proprietary technology from Illinois-based Motorola Solutions Inc, officials stated Monday
Beginning in 2006, China-based Hytera Communications Corp. Ltd. recruited and hired Motorola employees and directed them to take proprietary and trade secret information without authorization, prosecutors said. The stolen material involved Motorola’s digital mobile radio technology, developed through years of research and engineering.
Authorities said engineers used the stolen information, including source code, to develop competing Hytera products at a fraction of Motorola’s development costs. Hytera then competed against Motorola in the digital radio market through 2020.
Hytera pleaded guilty last year in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp Jr. on Thursday also sentenced the company to five years of probation. The probation requires Hytera to maintain an effective compliance program and submit annual reports to the government.
Tharp determined the scheme caused Motorola to lose about $214 million in profits, though restitution was fully offset by payments Hytera previously made under a civil judgment.
The sentence was announced by Andrew S. Boutros, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and Douglas S. DePodesta, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago Field Office. Assistance was provided by the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Thomas P. Peabody and Wesley A. Morrissette.
Seven Hytera employees were indicted in 2021 for their alleged roles in the theft. One of them, Gee Siong Kok, pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to steal trade secrets and agreed to cooperate with investigators. Kok is awaiting sentencing.
Arrest warrants have been issued for the six remaining defendants.