CRIMINAL CAPPLETALISM

Taiwan accuses Chinese Apple supplier of stealing secrets, charges 14


New Apple products go on sale at flagship Apple Store in New York

Fri, July 15, 2022 

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwanese prosecutors on Friday accused a Chinese Apple Inc supplier of stealing commercial secrets from a Taiwanese supplier and poaching its workforce to win orders from the U.S. company, saying it had charged 14 people.

Taiwan has been stepping up efforts to stop what it views as underhand and illegal activities by Chinese firms to steal know-how and poach away talent in what Taipei's government views as a threat to the island's tech prowess.

Prosecutors in New Taipei said after a year-and-a-half investigation they had found that China's Luxshare Precision Industry Co Ltd had targeted Taiwanese competitor Catcher Technology Co Ltd "in order to quickly enter the Apple production chain to win orders".

Luxshare "lured" Catcher's China based research and development team with promises of high salaries and stole business secrets from the Taiwanese firm, causing them big losses, the prosecutors said in a statement.

Luxshare was doing this in order to be able to "quickly build factories and mass produce cases for iPhones, iPads and other products", the statement said.

Luxshare did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and neither did Apple.

New Taipei prosecutors have now charged 14 people in connection with the case for breach of trust and taking commercial secrets for use overseas, they added.

"The department will do its best to investigate such cases to maintain the sound development of our country's enterprises and ensure the competitiveness of national industries."

Catcher, which makes iPhone and iPad cases, said in a statement it continues to implement and optimise the protection of trade secrets and intellectual property rights, and will investigate anything that infringes on its rights and interests.

The company is cooperating with the probe, it added.

In May, Taiwanese authorities raided 10 companies or their R&D centres operating in Taiwan without approval suspected of illegally poaching chip engineers and other tech talent.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

CAPPLETALISM

Court rules Apple must pay California workers during bag checks

California's Supreme Court called out Apple for hypocrisy in its characterization of the iPhone as unnecessary for its own employees

The California Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that Apple must pay employees for time spent waiting for their bags and personal electronic devices to be searched when they leave work.

The decision means that the tech giant will have to pay millions of dollars to more than 12,000 hourly workers at California retail stores who fall under the mandatory bag-search policy.

According to court documents, Apple employees are required to clock out before submitting to an exit search which can take from five to 20 minutes.

On the busiest days, employees say the wait time can be as long as 45 minutes. Those who refuse to have their belongings searched are subject to discipline, including termination.

A lower court had previously sided with Apple, ruling that time spent by employees waiting for the exit searches cannot be considered "hours worked" under California law.

The plaintiffs escalated the case to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which asked the Supreme Court to address the state law issue.

The state's high court in its decision issued on Thursday rejected Apple's argument that its employees could easily avoid a search by choosing not to bring a bag or iPhone to work.

Quoting from a US Supreme Court decision, it noted that cell phones are "now such a pervasive and insistent part of daily life that the proverbial visitor from Mars might conclude they were an important feature of human anatomy."

"The irony and inconsistency of Apple's argument must be noted," the court added.

"Its characterization of the iPhone as unnecessary for its own employees is directly at odds with its description of the iPhone as an 'integrated and integral' part of the lives of everyone else."

Apple representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on the ruling.

The Apple case is the third the state high court has considered in recent years as related to minimum wage and time during which workers are under employers' control.

In 2018, the court ruled that Starbucks has to pay for off-the-clock work—such as going through the checklist for closing the store—that can last a few seconds or minutes past someone's shift

Court revives suit alleging Apple monopoly on iPhone apps