( October 26, 2025, 03:00 GMT | Official Statement) — MLex Summary: South Korean auto-parts maker Kapec Valeo has been fined 410 million won ($285,000) by the country’s competition regulator for technology misappropriation, in violation of the Subcontracting Act. The Korea Fair Trade Commission said the company used an improved design proposal from its subcontractor without consent, incorporated it into its own design drawings and shared it with rival suppliers. The subcontractor had originally modified the design while producing a prototype to address qualify defects in the company’s earlier design. The KFTC also said that Kapec Valeo, a joint venture between Korea Powertrain and French automotive supplier Valeo Bayen, requested 198 technical documents from six subcontractors without issuing the required written statements outlining the purpose and ownership of the requested data, as mandated under the law. The regulator said the case marks the first case where an engineering change request was recognized as a protected technical material, noting that the technical data cannot be used or shared without explicit consent. The statement, in Korean, is attached….
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