Great Wall Motors accused Fiat of infringing on commercial secrets

Great Wall Motors announced Friday that it is filing a lawsuit against Fiat of infringing its commercial secrets. This may be the first case of commercial espionage where a domestic independent brand accuses a foreign manufacturer of stealing proprietary information.

Before the National Day holiday, the Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang City sent a subpoena to the Fiat office in Shanghai. The subpoena said that “Fiat infringed Great Wall Motors ’ commercial secrets”. Fiat in Shanghai refused to receive the subpoena for the reason that it is not the headquarters of Fiat. The Fiat office asked the Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang City to send the subpoena to the headquarters of Fiat in Italy.

In June, Great Wall Motors had already begun legal proceedings in the Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang City, with the Chinese carmaker claiming it had strong evidence to prove Fiat once went to its R&D base privately and secretly took some photos of Great Wall Motors’ first concept car called GWPERI.

Great Wall Motors has reported several disputes with Fiat. On June 2007, Fiat filed a lawsuit in the Intermediate People's Court of Shijiazhuang City saying Great Wall’s GWPERI had infringed the Italian carmaker’s design of the Panda car. However, Great Wall Motors won the suit.

Agencies and Wang Yang contributed to this story