Former DuPont Co. employee Tze Chao pleaded guilty to conspiring to steal trade secrets about titanium dioxide technology from the company and provide them to China’s state-owned Pangang Group Co.
Chao, 77, a naturalized U.S. citizen who spent 35 years at DuPont, said he used his former employer’s trade secrets to help Pangang, which was building a 100,000 metric-ton-per-year plant to produce titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in paints, plastics and paper. He entered his plea yesterday in federal court in San Francisco, admitting to one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage.
