Changing the story, are they ?

First I heard of it, the story was all about how a few engineers were fired for suspected industrial espionage. The way it was told led me to believe it had something to do with technology, especially since the fact that the engineers in question were all part of the department in charge of electrical vehicles was heavily referenced.

Now I hear that it is not industrial espionage, but business methods that these people were selling. Well excuse me but that is ridiculous on two counts. First of all, it is an about-face for the initial accusation - never a good sign when an accuser changes the why of his accusation. Second, Renault's business methods are not worth spying to retrieve - Renault has no business method. If they had one, their cars wouldn't break down so often.

I had a very interesting discussion three years ago with a person working in Germany for a company that makes parts for the automobile industry in general, and sometimes for Renault. That person told me that, of all the customers his company had, Renault was the only one for which the specifications were never complete. In other words, they had to call Renault time and time again to get an idea of how resistant, pliable, brittle or whatever the part had to be.

If that is due to a method, I don't think there is a company on Earth that needs to steal it.

Makes a weird sort of sense actually.

If another company incorporates the patents which are technical, Renault has a IP case against them and can "win back" the stolen profits. Marketing espionage is a whole other story.