Doosan Infracore will receive fines from the Fair-Trade Commission (FTC) on charges of stealing technical data from small and medium-sized (SMEs) companies and transferring them to other companies to cut down the delivery prices for excavator parts.
The FTC has decided to impose a fine of 335,000 dollars on Doosan Infracore on July 23rd on charges of misusing its subcontractor’s technology, and decided to report its five employees along with the corporation to the prosecution.
In September of last year, Chairman Kim Sang-joo said that he will eradicate the practice of large companies stealing technology from SMEs, and announced that this was the first sanction case on technology eradication measures.
According to the FTC, Doosan Infracore requested supplier A, which was supplying excavator air compressors in late 2015, to lower the price of the equipment by 18 percent, but as supplier A rejected the offer, the company delivered 31 drawings of air compressors to supplier B for the production of the air compressors.
“The production drawings contained detailed information such as how to weld and paint the core parts. Eleven out of 31 drawings were obtained as usual, while the other 20 were requested two more times,” said the FTC.
When supplier B developed the air compressors based on the drawings and delivered it for up to 10 percent cheaper, Doosan Infracore immediately changed its main supplier to supplier B.
The FTC also caught up with Doosan Infracore whether it could deliver 38 production drawings to other five companies and supply them cheaply when a SME company, which was supplying cooling water storage tanks last year, asked for delivery prices.
