GE alleges Siemens Energy stole trade secrets

General Electric (GE) filed a lawsuit accusing Siemens Energy of “willful and malicious misappropriation of GE’s trade secrets” to rig bids for contracts with public utilities to supply gas turbines.

The alleged theft dates back to May 2019 when Siemens Energy bid to provide gas turbine equipment and servicing to Dominion Energy Inc., a power utility in Virginia. GE alleges that trade secrets were improperly received from a Dominion employee who, over a 16-month period, allegedly sent a Siemens account manager confidential business information included in GE's submitted bid, including Dominion’s analysis of all bids for the project. GE  provided Dominion with technical specifications for four gas turbine models, pricing for different combinations of the equipment and details on how the company would service and maintain it, the lawsuit claims.

Siemens alerted GE to improperly receiving the trade secrets 16 months later through what GE described as a letter minimizing the infraction and after Siemens and Dominion completed their own internal investigations, the lawsuit claims.

GE asked a judge to stop Siemens from using the allegedly stolen material and pay damages totaling hundreds of millions of dollars or more.

The lawsuit comes after Siemens AG spun off its energy business to create Siemens Energy. GE lost the contract, a worth as much as $340 million.

GE in the suit said those trade secrets are “directly relevant to a pending South Carolina RFP [request for proposal] for which GE is currently bidding its gas turbine units against Siemens.”