DRAFT Ineos and Sinopec move towards patent resolution

London - Chemicals giant Ineos and Chinese state-owned oil and petrochemical giant Sinopec are reportedly close to settling a dispute over patents related to the industrial chemical acrylonitrile.

In March 2014, the Swiss firm filed a lawsuit against Sinopec after its subsidiary Sinopec Ningbo Engineering allegedly broke a technology agreement.

Ineos said that Sinopec had “broken a long established technology agreement which, together with trade secret misuse by other Sinopec companies, has enabled development of a series of new world scale Acrylonitrile plants without Ineos agreement or consent”.

Ineos chief executive Jim Ratcliffe was quoted in the Financial Times as saying: "The companies are close to a settlement based on a thorough discussion of the subject, based on a good relationship, a good understanding, and I think very soon we'll see a very good solution coming out of that.”

Ratcliffe also made the headlines at the weekend with his comments on the UK’s participation in the European Union.

He was quoted in the Sunday Times as saying: “I think the UK would be perfectly successful as a standalone country, part of the European marketplace like Norway and Switzerland, but without the expensive EU bureaucracy.”

He added: “Brits are British, Italians are Italian and Germans are German. Look at America. Californians, Texans, they see themselves as Americans, so do New Yorkers, but it’s not that way in Europe and never will be. We are independent countries.”