HTC One‘s lead designers have been arrested in Taiwan for scheming to steal company trade secrets in order to establish their own mobile start up. News of their arrest caused HTC’s shares to tumble nearly 6 percent yesterday.
The designers were arrested after a complaint by HTC’s Chairwoman Cher Wang to Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau. The three lead designers included in the complaint were Senior Manager of Design, Justin Huang, Vice President of Design, Thomas Chien and Development Director, Wu Chien-Hung.
According to Engadget, they charged HTC with fraudulent commission fees of more than $334,000 (Rs. 2.3 crores approx.) for the HTC One’s aluminum chassis design by raising an invoice from an external design firm and then splitting the money among themselves. The trio have also been accused of downloading information on HTC’s latest Sense 6.0 UI design. They were reportedly planning to use the new interface technology to start their own mobile design company, called “Xiayou”, aimed at the Chinese market. Huang has been released on bail as of now, but Chien and Chien-Hung still remain in jail.
HTC’s Senior Manager of Design, Justin Huang was one of the arrested.
In a statement, HTC said: “The company expects employees to observe and practice the highest levels of integrity and ethics. Protecting the company’s proprietary and intellectual properties, privacy and security is a core fundamental responsibility of every employee. The company does not compromise nor condone any violation at any level of our organization and the company shall act in accordance to the law. As this matter is currently under investigation by the relevant authorities, we therefore refrain from further comments. In addition, the company has sufficient resources in our design team and this situation will not impact the company’s operations, product portfolio plans and our overall business performance”.
Source: Engadget