DuPont v. Kolon Industries
| DuPont v. Kolon Industries | |
|---|---|
| Court | U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia |
| Full case name | E. I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company v. Kolon Industries, Incorporated |
| Decided | September 14, 2011 |
| Court membership | |
| Judge(s) sitting | Robert E. Payne |
DuPont v. Kolon Industries is an intellectual property lawsuit centering on the allegation that Kolon Industries (of ), a South Korea-based company, stole trade secrets concerning the production and marketing of Kevlar from DuPont, an American chemical company. Kevlar is a high strength synthetic fiber used in applications as diverse as bicycle tires and body armor. On September 14, 2011, a jury found in favour of DuPont and awarded damages of $919.9 million. A 2015 settlement reduced the damages to $275 million.
Kevlar is a registered trademark for a para-aramid synthetic fiber developed at DuPont in 1965 and used commercially from the early 1970s onwards. On February 3, 2009, DuPont filed suit against Kolon for "theft of trade secrets and confidential information" relating to its product, Heracron. The suit alleged that Michael Mitchell, a Kolon employee who formerly worked at DuPont, had "retained certain highly confidential information on his home computer" that he illegally passed to his new employer. Following an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Mitchell pleaded guilty to the theft of trade secrets and was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment in March 2010.
On July 21, 2011, the court found that Kolon had intentionally destroyed relevant evidence. Kolon was sanctioned for this behavior when evidence was produced of screenshots showing explicit instructions to delete potentially relevant emails and documents in violation of litigation holds supposedly in effect. According to a forensic analyst acting for DuPont at least 17,811 files and emails were deleted, many of which were deemed relevant to the case. As a result of this finding the jury was given an adverse inference instruction, and Kolon was ordered to pay DuPont's costs in connection with the motion. District Judge Robert E. Payne explained that "the actions taken by the key employees discussed herein were intentional, in bad faith and quite serious."
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