For years Chinese companies did nothing else, but assembled vehicles for foreign automakers. Just recently they have decided to put their own products to the auto market and since then the majority of them were involved in copyright wars. In 2007 Fiat accused Great Wall in stealing the design of Fiat Panda. This time Great Wall Motors is suing the Italian automaker for spying on their business secrets.

Great Wall Motors makes SUV’s and two years ago it came up with a subcompact car, Peri. The manufacturer says that Fiat has sent spies who got to the engineering center and took pictures of the car. At this moment the Intermediate People’s Court in China is preparing to send a complaint to the Fiat headquarters in Italy.

In 2007 Fiat won the deal in the Italian court and Great Wall was forbidden from selling Peri in Europe because it was a complete copy of Fiat Panda. Now the Chinese manufacturer is filing in its native country saying that Fiat spies visited Great Wall’s engineering center while Peri was in the stage of development and collected all necessary information about the project.

The Chinese automaker demands a public apology and 100,000 yuan which is about U.S. $14,650. So far, Fiat denies the accusation.