Great Wall Motors Accuses Fiat of Industrial Espionage

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Oct. 21 – Chinese car company Great Wall Motor has filed a suit against Fiat in China for industrial espionage; alleging that it secretly photographed its production facilities.

The suit was filed in Shijiazhuang in response to Fiat’s claim that Great Wall copied a Fiat car model. Great Wall’s primary evidence comes from the evidence Fiat itself provided to a Chinese court, Liu Hongkai, the lawyer representing Great Wall, told The Financial Times.

“We don’t have the exact photos, but in Fiat’s evidence … they said they had sent people to photograph Great Wall so in their material they acknowledged that they carried out this secret photography,” Liu said.

Great Wall Motors and Fiat are currently locked in an ongoing suit that claims that Great Wall’s Peri compact car was copied from of Fiat’s Panda model. An Italian court has ruled in favor of Fiat thus banning European sales of the Peri although the final verdict is still pending come March.

Intellectual property infringement and the availability of counterfeit products are issues that face companies doing business in China. Despite Beijing having intellectual property rights laws in place, enforcement is still not considered enough.

Fiat said in statement: “We wish to state that Fiat in its 110 years of history has never copied or imitated the design or the styling of any other car manufacturer in the world.”