WASHINGTON_ An American court has directed a former Indian Intel engineer to pay over $34,000 in fines and spend two years on probation after he pleaded guilty to stealing confidential corporate information and sharing it with Microsoft.
As reported by global media, Varun Gupta, who spent close to a decade working at Intel, clandestinely downloaded thousands of confidential documents before exiting the chipmaking behemoth in 2020. The documents were said to include Intel’s pricing policies as well as other commercially sensitive trade secrets.
Prosecutors maintained that Gupta misused the pilfered information once he had joined Microsoft and utilized it to leverage negotiations between the two companies. The hack was eventually discovered, prompting his termination from Microsoft and his subsequent lawsuit.
The judge sentenced probation instead of jail time, but prosecutors had pushed for a stiffer penalty to discourage future corporate espionage. “The abuse of confidential business information erodes confidence and distorts competition,” said one US attorney who worked on the case.
Defense attorneys, on the other hand, begged for clemency, emphasizing that Gupta had already lost irreparable personal and professional gains. They contended that the case had not only cost him his distinguished career in the technology sector but also his reputation.
In court, Gupta apologized and stated regret at his actions. “Each day I think about who I am and what I am going to do,” he said to the judge. “I lost my career, but I am starting to try to rebuild my life.”
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Gupta announced that he has since departed the technology industry altogether. Moving to France with his family, he is now studying viticulture—the science of growing grapes—with a view toward working in the wine industry.
The unprecedented career change has been an international media sensation, representing both a loss of grace and a gesture of reinvention. As prosecutors highlighted corporate data theft as a grave offense in an age of heightened technological competition, Gupta’s case points to the individual human cost of violating the confidentiality of one of the globe’s most secretive industries.
Intel has yet to publicly comment on the decision, but analysts say the case indicates increasing sensitivity in the United States toward the protection of intellectual property, particularly as global competition in semiconductors heats up. With firms such as Intel, Microsoft, and others engaged in high-stakes wars over chip technology, violations of trust are regarded as especially crippling.
For Gupta, the ruling marks the end of a high-profile legal ordeal but also the beginning of an uncertain new chapter—far removed from the world of Silicon Valley, in the vineyards of Europe.
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