March 4 – France faced the potential of severe political embarrassment on Friday after carmaker Renault RENA.PA threw doubt on the spying accusations that shook the company to its core and threatened a diplomatic spat with China. [ID:nLDE7230I7]
Here is what has happened so far in the espionage scandal which broke at the start of the year:
August 2010 – Renault’s compliance committee receives an anonymous “ethical alert” triggering an internal investigation.
October 2010 – Renault unveils the near street-ready version of its Zoe electric car, due for launch in 2012. Partner Nissan Motor Co 7201.T shows off its Leaf electric car which it will begin selling in multiple markets a few weeks later.
— Renault prepares to launch the Fluence and Kangoo electric vehicles and the Twizy two-seater electric city car.
Jan. 3, 2011 – Renault suspends three executives, including one member of its management committee. It later emerges that the three are Michel Balthazard, senior vice-president of advance engineering, his number two Bertrand Rochette and Matthieu Tenenbaum, deputy head of the electric vehicle programme.
The company says it plans legal action over alleged leaks of data, prompting a French official to warn of “economic war” and risks to French industry.
Jan. 4 – French Industry Minister Eric Besson visits the Renault Technocentre near Paris, the hub of the company’s electric vehicle programme.
Jan. 7 – French intelligence service the DCRI is looking into the case and a possible Chinese connection, a government source says.
Jan. 8 – Renault says an international network may have obtained data about the costs and economic model of its electric car programme but vital technology secrets — including 200 patents that are being lodged — are safe.
Jan. 11 – Speaking to journalists outside Renault’s headquarters following a meeting with management, Balthazard denies any wrongdoing.
— Tenenbaum’s lawyer says his client was accused on the basis of an anonymous letter which said he had received bribes.
— Rochette later tells RTL radio he is “amazed” at the accusations and had nothing to do with leaking information in return for bribes, as Renault alleged.
— China denies any link to industrial espionage, dismissing reports of its possible involvement as “baseless”.
Jan. 12 – France plays down the possibility of a link to China, saying it is not accusing any one country.
Jan. 13 – Renault sets the scene for a lengthy judicial process by lodging a complaint against “persons unknown” on counts of organised theft, aggravated breach of trust and passing intelligence to a foreign power, Paris prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin says.
— Renault says it has discovered serious misconduct detrimental to its “strategic, technological and intellectual assets”.
Jan. 14 – French state prosecutors launch an inquiry into industrial espionage at Renault.
— France’s DCRI has been charged with the investigation.
Jan. 19 – The three executives, now fired by Renault, say they plan to take legal action against the French carmaker.
Jan. 23 – Chief executive Carlos Ghosn says the suspected espionage appears to have been aimed at uncovering Renault’s investment model for its electric vehicles but declines to provide specifics of what proof Renault has of the espionage.
March 3 – Renault’s lawyer Jean Reinhart tells Europe 1 radio that the authorities were still investigating foreign bank accounts and dismisses media reports that the company had been tricked into believing it had been a victim of industrial espionage.
March 3 – Chief Operating Officer Patrick Pelata later tells newspaper Le Figaro in an interview that the company has some reasons for thinking it may have been tricked.
March 4 – Renault will “face consequences” after saying it might have been tricked into launching the investigation, says French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
For related Special Reports see:
http://link.reuters.com/pyc77r
http://r.reuters.com/gej38r ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (Compiled by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference unit in London and Helen Massy-Beresford in Paris; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
French car maker Renault has launched legal action for industrial espionage after it suspended three top managers who it reportedly suspected of leaking secrets about its new electric cars.
The company said it had lodged a complaint for “industrial espionage, corruption, breach of trust, theft and handling stolen goods”.
State prosecutor Jean-Claude Marin said the charges alleged that “elements concerning France’s economic secrets” had been leaked “to a foreign power”.
The French daily Le Figaro has reported that Chinese interests stood to benefit from spying on Renault’s electric car programme, on which it is staking its future. China has angrily denied any involvement.
Renault last week suspended three senior managers – Michel Balthazard, Matthieu Tenenbaum and Bertrand Rochette – over suspicions they had leaked strategic information.
The three deny involvement and were not named in the company’s judicial complaint last Thursday. Under the French judicial system prosecutors can investigate allegations without a defendant being named.
WASHINGTON—China stealthily integrated itself into America’s telecommunications market over the past several years and is taking advantage of the United States’ superior name brand to further its goals, alleges a U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) report this month.
China is “able to affiliate their products with the excellent reputation of U.S. brands in global markets. China’s technology industry now appears to be a de facto part of the American communications industry landscape,” states the USCC report in its introduction.
A major issue is that China aggressively bulldozes its way into every conceivable market, most importantly the technology sector, crushing its competitors with cheaper subsidized products (often filching the technology from foreign companies doing business in China), forced technology transfer, cyber attacks, corporate spying, or acquisition of foreign companies.
The Commission sent out a warning signal stating, “Investments would increase China’s leverage in the U.S. marketplace and beyond (even if indirectly through joint ventures and third parties) and could eventually provide China access to or control of vital U.S. and allied information, networks, or segments of critical supply chains.”
Espionage in High Gear
“Lurking in the cybershadows is a far more insidious and sophisticated form of computer espionage. … Such attackers represent the elite—a dark army of cyberspies targeting the heart of corporations around the world where trade secrets, proprietary data, and cutting-edge technologies lie locked away in digital fortresses,” according to an investigation on Chinese cyber attacks by The Christian Science Monitor (CSMonitor) last year.
Experts suggest that one tool of the espionage trade is cyber espionage, a highly effective tool that has been employed a number of times and was more often than not found to originate in China.
“The China threat is constant. If there’s valuable intellectual property out there, there are people in China and elsewhere who want to take it. It’s the new battlefield—low risk and low investment with high gain,” said Shawn Carpenter, forensics analyst for cybersecurity company NetWitness, in the CSMonitor article.
In 2010, Canadian cyber attack experts discovered spyware nicknamed “GhostNet.” The spyware was found to originate from Hainan Island Internet accounts, where the Chinese army intelligence is located.
The USCC report also sees China as the main culprit in stealing trade secrets via cyber attacks. “There is growing public concern over the impacts of cyber espionage incidents that appear to originate in China.”
Congressional and industrial sources said that computer attacks on companies, including Google, Yahoo, and defense contractor Northrop Grumman have increased, although these companies, outside of Google, have remained quiet about it.
“Online attacks that appear to come from China have been an ongoing problem for years, but big companies haven’t said much about this, eager to remain in the good graces of [China],” according to an article on Computerworld’s website.
According to expert opinion, these companies downplay incidents for fear of losing access to the so-called lucrative Chinese market.
Eau Claire (WQOW) – Investigators believe a woman bugged a child’s car seat to keep tabs on her ex-boyfriend.
Jamie Mesang is accused of duct taping a digital recorder underneath a car seat that belongs to her ex. Police say he became suspicious when Mesang started texting him about things she shouldn’t have known about.
Eventually, he took apart his son’s car seat and found the recorder. She’s been charged with a felony and will be in court in March.
Nick Brown, the former chief whip and key political ally of former prime minister Gordon Brown, became the latest public figure yesterday to say that he believes his private calls and messages were eavesdropped.
The Newcastle MP revealed that he believes his landline was the subject of an “amateurish” bugging operation around the time his homosexuality was made public in 1998.
Five years later, he was also approached by police investigating voicemail hacking claims and warned that his mobile phone may have been illegally accessed. The former Cabinet minister is the latest senior Labour figure to come forward with claims that his phone calls and messages were hacked. Tessa Jowell, the former culture secretary, revealed that her phone may have been accessed as recently as this week and she has hired lawyers to discover who hacked into her messages on 29 separate occasions in 2006.
Although it is not known in both cases who was responsible for the hacking, the claims will further fuel the phone hacking scandal engulfing the News of the World (NOTW), which is now the subject of a new police investigation following the decision of the Sunday paper to sack its head of news, Ian Edmondson.
Mr Brown, who was chief whip in the Commons for Tony Blair when he first came to power in 1997, said that his suspicions were raised following a conversation from a landline with an “important” person while his sexuality was still unknown. The MP said: “I picked up a landline telephone very quickly to make another call straight away. And the line clicked and then I heard my last conversation played back to me, which was quite eerie.
“I got on to British Telecom straight away. They said the line showed every sign of having been intercepted manually, not through scanners. It was an amateurish attempt involving the physical intervention of the line with a recording device.”
He added: “The engineer thought a recording device had been set to record calls automatically. I have no idea who did it but it was clearly not the intelligence services. I assume it was someone acting for a newspaper.”
Mr Brown, who also served as agriculture secretary, revealed he was gay after a former lover approached the NOTW offering to sell his story. In a speech to farmers the day after he confirmed his sexuality, the then minister put on a brave face, saying: “The sun is out – and so am I.” There is no evidence that the NOTW was responsible for the bugging operation.
Mr Brown added that he was then approached by an unnamed police force in the west of England in 2003 who told him that they were pursuing a phone-tapping prosecution and he was one of those who may have been targeted. The case collapsed when it reached court and full details of the allegations were never disclosed.
The MP said: “Given that it was near [Prince Charles’ home] Highgrove, my assumption was that this might involve the Royal Family. But I was never explicitly told that.”
Mr Brown, regarded as a staunch supporter of Gordon Brown, who has made public his own concerns that his phone was hacked while he was chancellor, called on Scotland Yard to make a greater effort to ensure such crimes did not take place again. He said: “The only people who can properly inquire into this are the police and they are right to review everything.”
A growing number of public figures have come forward recently claiming they were targeted by Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective who was jailed in 2007 along with the NOTW’s then royal editor, Clive Goodman, for illegally accessing the voicemails of member of the royal household.
The television actress Leslie Ash and her husband, Lee Chapman, the former footballer, said they were planning to sue after records of phone numbers belonging to the couple and their children were found on notebooks seized at the home of Mr Mulcaire.
