Foxconn seeks 70m yuan after pair left to work for rival firm Foxconn, the Taiwanese company that makes iPods for Apple, has filed a 70 million yuan compensation suit against two former employees and a Hong Kong-listed battery maker after the pair's defection to its rival company. Foxconn said the defection was 'an infringement of its confidential technology' and the firm was seeking a court injunction to stop the defectors from joining BYD Company - one of the world's largest battery makers whose clients include Nokia and Motorola. BYD, which was founded in Shenzhen and listed in Hong Kong, yesterday confirmed a China News Agency report from Thursday, but declined to go into details. 'We can confirm that Foxconn has filed a lawsuit in the [Shenzhen] court against us. But that is all that I can say,' a company spokesman said. Foxconn, the biggest digital products exporter in Shenzhen, could not be reached for comment. The two defendants, Liu Xiangjun and Shi Shaoqing, were former staff of Hongfujin Precision Industry and Futaihong Precision Industry in Shenzhen - both wholly-owned by Foxconn. It is unclear what their previous job responsibilities were. The case is believed to be the biggest compensation claim in Shenzhen over the defection of an employee, and follows Foxconn's decision to lodge a record-breaking defamation suit against two mainland journalists for a report on alleged abuse of workers. Liu Zilong, a veteran Shenzhen lawyer, said lawsuits against defectors had become increasingly common in the Pearl River Delta as technology firms vied for top talent. Many had put special clauses in contracts to deter employees from leaking technological know-how by defecting to rival companies. 'Seventy million yuan is a huge sum of money and this could well be the biggest such case in Shenzhen. But then it is not uncommon,' Mr Liu said. 'A technology company needs to invest a lot of resources in research and training, and they have to learn how to protect themselves against headhunting. Such cases are usually very complicated and the plaintiff must have evidence to prove their technology secrets might be compromised by the defection.' He said he had handled several similar cases and they were on the rise globally. Last year, Google and Microsoft fought a legal battle over the defection of Taiwanese-born researcher Lee Kai-fu to the search engine. Microsoft sued Mr Lee and Google in a US court, claiming his recruitment to build and head Google's China research and development centre violated a one-year non-compete clause he had signed.
