Bloomberg and Seeking Alpha are reporting that Siemens Energy has accused GE of embellishing claims of stolen trade secrets in an attempt to gain advantage in the tough market for gas-power turbines, in the latest allegation in a lawsuit between the two companies.
In a January lawsuit reported on tEDmag, GE claimed Siemens Energy used confidential information about GE’s gas turbines to help it unfairly win at least nine contracts worth billions of dollars.
The complaint is an “opportunistic attempt by General Electric to exploit a specific issue with a now-canceled gas turbine project in order to obtain a sweeping injunction that would tactically disadvantage one of its only competitors in the gas turbine market,” Siemens Energy said in a court filing Monday in response to the lawsuit, according to Bloomberg.
Siemens said GE suffered no damages from the Virginia project because it was canceled last year, and “GE’s long history of financial problems in its gas turbine business contradicts its assertion that it would have enjoyed substantial profits if not for the alleged misappropriation.”
GE declined to comment further on the lawsuit, other than: “We aggressively protect and defend our intellectual property.”
The battle follows a series of legal clashes between the two companies over power-generation products. They compete fiercely for turbine and service contracts that can generate cash for decades, contending with a tough market as demand rises for electricity generated from renewable sources.
Bloomberg stated that once Siemens “learned about the confidential information, it took ‘extensive disciplinary action’ by firing certain employees, removed the information from its files and voluntarily notified both Dominion and GE”.
“GE’s lawsuit has nothing to do with protecting GE’s alleged trade secrets, and instead is a tactical anti-competitive attempt to exploit a historical issue that has already been addressed” by Siemens Energy, the German company said.
The information was limited to the one project, yet GE has expanded that to claim there was a more extensive theft of information, including some that’s actually public, Siemens Energy said.
Siemens is scheduled to file a formal response to that request by March 24.
The case is General Electric Co. v. Siemens Energy Inc., 21-25, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Richmond).
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