積水化学元社員に有罪　中国企業に情報漏えい―大阪地裁

　スマートフォンに使われる機密の技術情報を中国企業に漏らしたとして、不正競争防止法違反罪に問われた積水化学工業の元社員、久保田敬士被告（４６）の判決が１８日、大阪地裁であった。栗原保裁判官は「営業秘密の国外流出に強い抑止力を働かせる必要がある」として懲役２年、執行猶予４年、罰金１００万円（求刑懲役２年、罰金１００万円）を言い渡した。
　栗原裁判官は、久保田被告が中国企業と継続的な協力関係にあったと指摘。実際に損害は確認されなかったものの、「（スマホの液晶技術で）会社のシェアに大きな影響を与える可能性があった」と述べた。（2021/08/18-11:04）

A Japanese court on Wednesday found a former Sekisui Chemical Co. employee guilty of leaking the company's secret information related to smartphone technology to a Chinese firm.
   Osaka District Court sentenced Takashi Kubota, 46, to two years in prison, suspended for four years, and ordered him to pay 1 million yen in fines. He was charged with violating the law for preventing unfair competition.
   "There is a need to deploy a powerful deterrent against the flow of confidential business information out of the country," judge Tamotsu Kurihara said.
   The judge pointed out that Kubota was in cooperative relations with the Chinese firm on a continuous basis. Although no real damage was caused by the information leakage, the misconduct could have substantially affected the Japanese company's market share in the liquid crystal display business, the judge said.
   According to the ruling, Kubota sent information on the production process for Sekisui Chemical's conductive particles used for smartphone touch panels to the Chinese firm via email between August 2018 and January 2019.