A Brussels court has sentenced a former employee of chocolate producer Callebaut to six months in prison for stealing 19,000 company files, including recipes and marketing strategies.
The man, referred to as G., had worked for Callebaut for over twenty years before accepting a new position within the company in September 2021.
Just one month later, he resigned and joined a competitor, but not before downloading thousands of files from Callebaut’s cloud storage.
Callebaut’s lawyer stated that G. claimed he took the files to retrieve family photos and tax documents.
However, the downloaded files also included proprietary recipes and marketing plans. During questioning, G. admitted he intended to use them in his new job.
A few weeks after the theft, G. returned a USB stick containing only around 6,000 of the stolen files. The rest, he alleged, had been deleted.
The company argued otherwise, stating G. initially denied having made any additional copies. In 2023, he admitted to creating another copy but claimed he deleted it immediately afterwards.
Prosecutors acknowledged there was no evidence to suggest G. had shared the files with anyone else.
G.’s lawyer argued that he changed jobs because his new position at Callebaut did not suit him.
Concerned about losing access to private files on his work laptop, G. downloaded them, insisting he never intended to misuse the company’s confidential information.
