Probation in Taiwanese Trade-Secrets Case

A Taiwanese executive who paid an Avery Dennison Corp. employee to pilfer corporate secrets from the U.S. adhesives maker was sentenced to six months of home detention in the first case tried under a U.S. law aimed at combating trade-secret theft. A federal judge in Youngstown, Ohio, sentenced P.Y. Yang, chief executive of Taiwan-based Four Pillars Ltd., to two years of probation along with home detention for violating the U.S. Economic Espionage Act. Yang’s daughter, Hwei Chang “Sally” Yang, was sentenced to one year of probation on the same charge. The Yangs were convicted in April of paying Ten Hong “Victor” Lee, an engineer at Avery Dennison, $160,000 over eight years to obtain formulas developed by the Pasadena-based company. U.S. District Judge Peter Economus said he shied away from giving the Yangs jail time because Avery Dennison and prosecutors couldn’t provide reliable figures on the company’s losses tied to the stolen secrets.