By Jonathan Stempel
April 28 (Reuters) – Duracell, the battery maker owned by Berkshire Hathaway, must face a lawsuit accusing it of stealing trade secrets related to German chemical company BASF’s lithium-ion battery technology.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Williams on Tuesday rejected Duracell’s bid to dismiss the April 2025 lawsuit related to BASF’s years-long effort to manufacture lower-cost materials for high-powered batteries.
The Delaware judge’s decision is under seal, pending redactions proposed by both companies.
Lawyers for Duracell and BASF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Lithium-ion batteries are used in many products including consumer electronics, electric vehicles, appliances, toys and energy storage systems.
In its complaint, BASF said it invested substantial resources in creating a proprietary process for producing a high-performance cathode material that was a “crucial” battery component.
It said Duracell caused substantial and irreparable injury by pretending to honor the companies’ agreement to collaborate, providing misappropriated secrets to a third party, and arranging for manufacturing under the false pretense it was responsible for the process.
Duracell countered that it came up with the process several years before working with BASF, and “cannot misappropriate intellectual property that was licensed to it.” The Chicago-based company also said BASF waited too long to sue.
BASF announced a plan in December 2023 to separate its battery chemicals business and two other businesses into autonomous units, to help boost earnings.
Berkshire, based in Omaha, Nebraska, bought Duracell from Procter & Gamble for about $2.9 billion in 2016. Warren Buffett was Berkshire’s chief executive at the time, and remains chairman.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
