Renault Files Spying Complaint 'Against Persons Unknown'

PARIS — Renault SA filed a "complaint against persons unknown" for industrial espionage and other acts, but declined to give further details about the high-profile spying allegations at its electric-vehicle program.

The lawsuit alleging criminal misconduct followed meetings Tuesday at Renault headquarters with three senior managers as part of a procedure aimed at dismissing them. It is now up to a prosecutor to decide whether to launch an investigation, reported The Wall Street Journal.

The three managers were suspended by the French auto maker last week for "misconduct that infringes Renault's ethics, consciously and deliberately endangering the company's assets."

One of three managers said via his lawyer that he had been accused by the company of taking bribes. All three have said, either to reporters or via their lawyers, that they have been accused of serious wrongdoing, and that they are not guilty.

Thursday's complaint, filed with the State Prosecutor of Paris, was "for acts constituting organized industrial espionage, corruption, breach of trust, theft and concealment," Renault said in a statement.

"The complaint follows the discovery of serious misconduct detrimental to the company and in particular to its strategic, technological and intellectual assets," Renault said. The company declined to give further details.

"I note that the information [in the complaint] is very elliptical," said Marie-Sophie Rozenberg, a lawyer representing one of the three employees, Bertrand Rochette, Renault's manager of electric vehicle research. "Certain of the offenses astonish me." Asked precisely what her client was accused of, she said: "I, too, would like to know."

Renault's chief operating officer has said the allegations involve an organized international network and that technology leaked involved the architecture and economic model of electric vehicles.

Renault is working with Nissan Motor Co. of Japan on electric models. The two companies own shares in each other as part of a broader partnership.

"The matter is now in the hands of the judiciary," the company's Thursday statement said. "To ensure that the judiciary procedure is carried out in the calmest possible conditions, Renault will not take part in any controversy and will reserve the items in its possession exclusively for the competent services responsible for the investigation."