{"id":2171,"date":"2024-06-29T22:03:52","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T02:03:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-1-winter-2024\/sentencing-economic-espionage-in-an-era-of-great-power-competition\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:11:31","slug":"sentencing-economic-espionage-in-an-era-of-great-power-competition","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/in-print-2\/volume-22-1-winter-2024\/sentencing-economic-espionage-in-an-era-of-great-power-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentencing Economic Espionage in an Era of Great Power Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Intellectual property (IP) theft costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a figure that has only grown since the passage of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) in 1996.1 <\/span>U.S. adversaries\u2014especially the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC) and Russia\u2014are repeat perpetrators, stealing secrets to undercut America\u2019s national security. And yet, the U.S. Sentencing Commission Guidelines (\u201cSentencing Guidelines\u201d or \u201cGuidelines\u201d) used to sentence those who steal secrets for transport outside of the U.S. have not caught up with this reality. Instead, the Guidelines emphasize pecuniary loss rather than national security costs.<\/p>\n

After 9\/11, Congress oriented the Sentencing Guidelines toward the terrorism threat by creating hefty enhancements.2 <\/span>But the Guidelines have not yet been shaped to address strategic competition with the PRC, which poses the greatest overall economic and military threat to the United States.3 <\/span>The PRC\u2019s economic development strategy is premised in part on stealing U.S. research and technology.4 <\/span>However, those who steal IP to the PRC\u2019s benefit often do not receive a sentence commensurate with the national security impact of their crime.5<\/span><\/p>\n

This paper will focus on prosecution of individuals who steal trade secrets in order to transport them to the PRC. While other countries also commit economic espionage, the PRC is the most significant offender.6 <\/span>This paper will begin with an overview of the PRC\u2019s economic espionage strategy, focusing on its objectives and methods to show that IP theft is a threat to U.S. national security interests. With this context in place, this paper will examine sentencing issues related to PRC-incentivized IP theft\u2014namely, under-sentencing, uncertainty in sentencing, and a lack of focus on national security. These issues stem from several factors, but this paper will focus on the Sentencing Guidelines\u2019 emphasis on pecuniary loss. Finally, this paper will briefly touch on charging problems in foreign incentivized trade secret theft cases. Defendants in these cases\u2014who typically receive PRC funding or other benefits\u2014are sometimes charged with theft of trade secrets (18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1832), rather than economic espionage (18 U.S.C. \u00a7 1831), and are thereby predisposed to receive lower sentences.7<\/span><\/p>\n

After surveying these issues, this paper will propose a two-fold solution: first, amend the EEA to reflect the many methods the PRC uses for technology transfer\u2014with the aims of aligning the statute and Guidelines and putting national security concerns at the forefront of PRC-incentivized trade secret theft cases\u2014and second, implement a corresponding sentencing structure. This new structure will eliminate the loss calculation while creating a base offense level for transporting trade secrets abroad, an enhancement for intent to benefit a foreign power, and sector-specific enhancements that recognize the PRC\u2019s military-civil fusion strategy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Intellectual property (IP) theft costs the United States hundreds of billions of dollars a year, a figure that has only grown since the passage of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10127,"featured_media":0,"parent":1770,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-2171","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2171"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2175,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2171\/revisions\/2175"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/public-policy-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}