China's state owned automakers are working tirelessly to attempt to catch up with the rest of world, and they're not above doing it the easy and unethical way.
A GM engineer named Shanshan Du and her husband Yu Qin were just found guilty of attempting to sell GM's hybrid technology to Chinese companies. Of course, hybridization is one of the most important ways for an automaker to gain market share and be competitive at the moment. Leaking of the company's technology would be a big blow to GM in the growing Chinese market, and potentially the rest of the world as Chinese automakers expand into other continents.
Shanshan Du will serve one year and one day in prison, a reduced sentence as a result of the seven year delay between the FBI raid and the trail and Du's declining health. Yu Qin has set up a company and began telling people that he planned to provide GM Hybrid tech to Chinese competitors. He has been sentenced to three years in prison.
Related: China Expected to Build More Cars Than Europe in 2013
[via ABC News]
