China’s Supreme People's Court on October 20 refused to reconsider the decision ordering Anhui Newman Fine Chemicals Co., Ltd. to pay Guangzhou Tinci Materials Technology Co. 30 million yuan ($4.7 million) in damages for trade secret misappropriation.

Hua, a former Guangzhou Tinci employee, passed the confidential company information about Carbomer-related manufacturing processes to Anhui Newman employees Liu, Zhu, and Hu and profited from the misuse of the leaked information with them.

Guangzhou Tinci filed a lawsuit against Anhui Newman, Hua, Liu, Zhu, and Hu with the Guangzhou Intellectual Property Court for infringing its Carbomer-related trade secrets. The trial court ruled in favor of Guangzhou Tinci, ordering the defendants to pay it 15 million yuan ($2.35 million) in damages, 2.5 times the profit they obtained by misusing the trade secrets. Anhui Newman appealed the court decision to the Supreme People’s court. The top court founded that defendants acted in actual malice against plaintiff Guangzhou Tinci and increased the amount in damages to 30 million yuan ($4.7 million) from 15 million yuan ($2.35 million) originally decided by the lower court.