ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, December 12, 1996 TAG: 9612120053
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BERLIN
SOURCE: Associated Press
General Motors claimed another victory Wednesday in its complaint of theft of trade secrets with the criminal indictment of a key executive who defected to Volkswagen.
Prosecutors in the central German city of Darmstadt scheduled a news conference for Friday to announce charges against former GM purchasing chief Jose Ignacio Lopez and three other former GM managers for alleged betrayal of ``trade and company secrets.''
Both companies said that prosecutors had notified them of the indictment Wednesday, although neither side had yet been given a copy.
Lopez left GM in 1993. The executive, who was about to be named head of North American operations, took seven other managers with him.
General Motors Corp., the world's largest automaker, accuses Lopez of taking files with purchasing price lists and details for a super-efficient car factory among thousands of pages of documents and computer diskettes. Adam Opel AG, GM's German subsidiary, has joined in the complaint against VW.
But Volkswagen AG, which denied any wrongdoing, said an indictment should not be interpreted to mean GM has a strong case. Although it has not yet seen a copy of the charges, Volkswagen said its lawyers believed ``that the prosecutors for the most part found Opel and GM's accusations unfounded'' and that the charges were based on ``one-sided'' witnesses from GM and Opel.
Lawyers for Lopez said they don't expect the charges to stand up, and announced that they will seek to have them thrown out before they can go to trial.
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB