Dejan Karabasevic, a former AMSC employee, has already been imprisoned in Austria for intellectual property theft.  Karabasevic has admitted to colluding with Sinovel to steal important intellectual property related to AMSC’s wind turbine control systems.

In addition to the contractual and civil cases described above, AMSC also has provided Beijing law enforcement with substantial evidence proving the criminal conduct of Sinovel employees and has requested that police take criminal action. This hearing with the Beijing Arbitration Commission is the first in a series of cases, which includes the biggest intellectual property claim ever made in Chinese courts. AMSC has filed civil lawsuits and an arbitration case in the Chinese courts valued at more than US$1.2 billion. These cases stem from Sinovel’s contractual breaches in March 2011 and AMSC’s discovery of intellectual property theft in June 2011.

Sinovel’s international business has been significantly affected by this ongoing dispute.  In late November, it was reported that Mainstream Renewable Power of Ireland had halted its 1 gigawatt (roughly US$1 billion) wind turbine framework agreement with Sinovel as a direct result of the intellectual property theft.