DOVER -A fed­er­al ju­ry award­ed $919.9 mil­lion in dam­ages to the DuPont Co yes­ter­day in a trade-se­crets law­suit in­volv­ing high-strength syn­thet­ic fibers used in prod­ucts such as Kevlar body ar­mor. The rul­ing was hand­ed down by a ju­ry in Vir­ginia, fol­low­ing a tri­al that pit­ted Delaware-based DuPont against South Ko­re­an com­peti­tor Kolon In­dus­tries. The ju­ry found that Kolon had ma­li­cious­ly and will­ful­ly mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed 149 DuPont trade se­crets re­lat­ed to the tech­nol­o­gy, known as aramid fibers.

Af­ter the ver­dict was read, DuPont at­tor­ney Michael Songer asked the court to award the com­pa­ny US$350,000 in puni­tive dam­ages for each of the 149 trade se­crets. He al­so moved to freeze Kolon's as­sets and sought a per­ma­nent in­junc­tion pro­hibit­ing Kolon's con­tin­ued pos­ses­sion and use of the trade se­crets. Kolon re­leased a state­ment say­ing it dis­agreed with the ver­dict and is con­fi­dent that a favourable de­ci­sion will be reached on ap­peal. DuPont shares rose 1.9 per cent yes­ter­day to close at $45.52.

AP