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JOHNSON LAI and CHAN HO-HIM
Mon, April 27, 2026 astatine 4:10 AM CDT 2 min read
NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan (AP) — A tribunal successful Taiwan sentenced a erstwhile worker of Japanese machine spot instrumentality shaper Tokyo Electron to 10 years successful situation connected Monday successful a landmark lawsuit implicit commercialized secrets of the island’s starring chipmaker TSMC.
Tokyo Electron was besides fined 150 cardinal caller Taiwan dollars ($5 million) and 4 different radical were sentenced to up to six years successful jail.
The dense sentencing nether Taiwan’s nationalist information enactment and different statutes underscores Taiwan's efforts to support the self-ruled island’s precocious exertion and semiconductor sector, which are captious for its export-oriented economy arsenic artificial quality booms.
TSMC, oregon Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., is 1 of the world’s astir invaluable companies and counts Nvidia and Apple arsenic cardinal customers.
In handing down the 10-year condemnation astatine Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court, Judge Chang Ming-huang said Chen Li-ming, who worked astatine TSMC earlier moving to Tokyo Electron's subsidiary successful Taiwan, was believed to person utilized his relationships with his erstwhile TSMC colleagues to illegally entree and cod the spot maker's commercialized secrets.
Chen photographed, copied and passed on the materials to assistance Tokyo-based Tokyo Electron upgrade its technologies and amended its bids arsenic a TSMC supplier, according to the court.
Chen's information was chiefly to “improve his idiosyncratic enactment performance,” Chang said, but helium jeopardized the competitiveness and economical information of Taiwan and its chipmaking industry.
TSMC did not instantly remark connected Monday’s ruling.
Taiwan’s prosecutors indicted Chen and others successful August connected alleged commercialized concealed theft. Tokyo Electron said successful a connection astatine the clip it had dismissed an worker progressive successful the lawsuit but besides said its interior probe had not confirmed grounds of the that confidential accusation was leaked.
The Japanese institution said Monday that it takes “the court’s uncovering with the utmost seriousness” and volition fortify its "information absorption systems and different applicable measures.” But it stressed that the tribunal and its ain probe had not recovered immoderate organizational engagement by Tokyo Electron.
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Chan reported from Hong Kong.
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