Set Back in Government’s DuPont Trade Secrets Case

We’ve reported previously on the economic espionage case concerning Pangang Group Steel Vanadium & Titanium Co Ltd’s indictment for stealing DuPont’s secret process for manufacturing titanium dioxide, a compound that makes products white.

Now comes this report from Reuters (in the Chicago Tribune) concerning a major set back in the government’s case.

Federal judge Jeffrey White in the Northern District of California dismissed the indictment against the Chinese company on the grounds that service on its putative US agent was insufficient.

According to the report, White ruled that the government had not shown sufficient evidence that Pangang exercised enough control over the entity served for it to be considered an agent.

So we can now add service of process issues to the list of difficulties in trying to rein in Chinese economic espionage.

The government has until August to figure out what it will do next.

We’ll report on what happens.