Ohio-based medical device company AtriCure Inc. is suing West Vancouver-based businessman Jian Meng and his homemaker wife Xi Ren, claiming the pair used illicit profits from an intellectual property theft scheme to buy British Columbia real estate.
AtriCure filed a notice of civil claim in BC Supreme Court on June 11 naming Jian Meng, also known as Larry Meng, and his wife, Xi Ren, as defendants. According to the lawsuit, the Mason, Ohio-based company was seeking to expand into the Chinese market with its “technologically advanced surgical devices to treat arterial fibrillation,” a degenerative heart condition.
“Since being founded in 2000, AtriCure has spent millions of dollars on research and development to develop innovative technological solutions for the treatment of [arterial fibrillation],” the claim states. “Shortly after its formation, Atricure desired to expand its business into China. The company did not, however, have any presence in China, and little knowledge of the Chinese language, the Chinese medical device market, Chinese regulation and the Chinese regulatory process.”
From 2005 to 2017, Meng and his company, non-party Beijing ZenoMed Scientific Co. Ltd., acted as exclusive distributor of AtriCure products in China. Part of the distribution arrangement involved AtriCure sharing confidential information with Meng’s firm, the claim states.
“Unbeknownst to AtriCure, instead of causing ZenoMed to assist in the distribution of, and securing of regulatory approvals for AtriCure products, Meng embarked on a scheme to steal AtriCure’s confidential information to profit from this theft by causing the production and sale of counterfeit AtriCure products derived entirely from this theft, and to hide the proceeds of this theft in real property in British Columbia,” AtriCure’s lawsuit states. “Ren assisted Meng with the Meng Scheme through the laundering of money derived from it in real property in British Columbia.”
AtriCure claims the couple owns properties in Vancouver, Surrey, Port Coquitlam and Powell River, while residing at their West Vancouver home at 2345 Orchard Lane, currently assessed at nearly $4.7 million.
“Meng purchases the properties, at least in part, to hide or secure the illicit profits and has used the illicit profits, in whole or in part, to purchase, pay for, improve and maintain the properties,” the claim states.
AtriCure claims it only recently discovered that Meng, a purported doctor, has been, “since in or around the year 2000, engaged in a practice of enticing North American medical device companies to do business with companies he owns and controls in China, only to steal their intellectual property and then profit from the production and sale of counterfeit produts derived from this theft.”
AtriCure seeks damages for conspiracy, unjust enrichment, fraud and an accounting of illicit profits made from the alleged counterfeiting scheme. The allegations have not been tested or proven in court and the defendants had not responded to the claim by press time.
