CALT and Svolt Energy reached a settlement on the unfair competition dispute, and CALT received a settlement payment of CNY 5 million from Svolt Energy.
CATL filed a lawsuit against Svolt Energy (Chinese: 蜂巢能源), a company specializing in vehicle battery and energy storage, for the unfair competition dispute.
Under the auspices of Ningde Intermediate People's Court in Fujian Province, CATL and Svolt Energy reached a settlement on the unfair competition dispute, and CATL received a compensation of CNY 5 million (USD 0.74 million) from Svolt Energy On July 19.
In February of 2022, CATL filed a suit against Svolt Energy and its two affiliated companies, which are also power battery suppliers, for unfair competition.
CALT argued that between 2018 and 2019, nine employees quitting from CALT and joined Baoding Yixin Consulting Service Company (Chinese: 保定亿新咨询服务有限公司) and Wuxi Tianhong Enterprise Management Consulting Company (Chinese: 无锡天宏企业管理咨询有限公司) and provided services for CATL’s competitor Svolt Energy. Alleging the violation of the Confidentiality and Non-competition Agreement that CATL signed with its employees, CALT demanded that each of these nine employees shall pay CNY 1 million for breach of contract.
The court found that although the relevant non-competition agreement performed by CATL and its employees did not include Svolt Energy in the List of Non-competition Enterprises, the business scope of Svolt Energy overlapped a lot with that of CALT, and the two companies could be considered as competing enterprises.