Faux pas
Evidence seen by HEXUS indicates that a marketing representative of Cooler Master gained access to an invite-only, private press briefing held last week in France by its competitor Antec.
Apparently posing as one "Anthony Fevre, President of Spirit LAN", the Cooler Master marketing representative Jérémie Hallot, was later discovered to have acquired a USB memory stick containing Antec marketing materials with information regarding Antec's upcoming products.
Further evidence seen by HEXUS shows that both Cedric Pineau, "en charge du bureau France Cooler Master", seems to admit both knowledge of Hallot's actions and his responsibility for Hallot's behaviour, which he agrees "n'est pas appréciable" (‘is not acceptable').
Admission that Hallot acquired one of Antec's USB memory sticks is also made, though, surprisingly we think, Pineau seems somewhat dismissive of its contents stating it "n'est nullement confidentiel" (‘is not confidential').
No mention is made by Pineau regarding the manner in which Hallot gained access to the event; whether Pineau or anyone else at Cooler Master had prior knowledge of Hallot's intentions before engaging in what seems to be an act of pre-mediated espionage and what Cooler Master has done with the information wrongly taken from Antec.
We understand that Jérémie Hallot has been only quite recently engaged by Cooler Master and is (or was) recently a significant figure associated with a French gaming clan called ‘D4gaming', which, amongst others, is presently sponsored by 'steelseries' (which offers some products which compete with Cooler Master's own 'CM Storm' offerings) and claims some kind of partnership with Intel.