HTC's Former Lead Designer and Team Indicted for Fraud and Leaked Company Info

[dgstorm]

In August of this year, five of HTC's employees including several top executives were arrested for leaking company info to third party competitors. This troupe of "alleged" wrong-doers included R&D director Wu Hung, senior manager Justin Huang, and VP of Product Design Thomas Chien. All of them were just indicted for fraud and more. As it turns out, not only had Chien and his crew leaked HTC design secrets to a company that Chien was planning on working for after leaving HTC, they also raked in around NT$33,566,000 (USD $1.12 million), by filing false expense claims and getting undocumented rebates from a supplier.

Another truly mind-boggling detail about this case is that about a quarter of this embezzled money was stashed in Chien's Audi, as another quarter was confiscated from him earlier. Most of the other perps have already confessed to the wrong-doing, but Chien remains defiant and refuses to admit any wrongdoing. These indictments could send Chien and his team to prison for up to 10 years.

Source: Engadget

 

[mountainbikermark]

If that happened I the U.S.they'd get off with no jail time and a hefty retirement plan for their troubles.

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s pen aholic in Beast Mode (Notetoo)

 

[xsylus]

Wait... HTC has ideas worth leaking? :r_c:

 

[Vepaot]

I wanted to root for HTC for a long time. The EVO 4G was such a major competitor to the iPhone4 back in the day, and they aren't trying to become the next Apple like Samsung seems to be doing. But HTC just keeps screwing things up time and again. My best friend was an avid HTC fan for years, but I think he's going to jump ship to the G2 here soon. And I can't really blame him, the market is shifting it seems. Motorola isn't doing anything fantastic, HTC seems to mess something up every few months or so, and I don't hear about anything relating to Sony, Oppo, Asus, Huawei, ZTE, etc. Which really only leaves Samsung. I'm hoping LG has really turned it around and will continue making great phones in the future to make up for the fact that HTC will probably tank soon at the rate they're going.