“Sequestro d’emergenza di Nexperia da parte del governo olandese dopo il furto di segreti commerciali britannici” – NRC

AI generated English translation:

**Emergency Intervention at Nexperia After Theft of British Trade Secrets**

The Dutch minister’s drastic intervention at chip manufacturer Nexperia was the only option to prevent the dismantling of the company’s European operations, according to insiders.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs (EZ) intervened at Nexperia because the Chinese owner, Wingtech—led by entrepreneur Zhang Xuezheng (Wing)—was accused by Dutch officials of stealing trade secrets from a British factory and was on the verge of dismantling Nexperia’s European branch. Multiple insiders confirmed this to NRC. On September 30, Minister of Economic Affairs Victor Karremans (VVD) froze Nexperia’s operations using the obscure 1952 Goods Availability Act. Since then, the Chinese parent company, Wingtech, has been unable to relocate any business units or machinery. The controversial intervention led to a Chinese export ban and potential production issues for automakers, as their suppliers can no longer obtain Nexperia chips. Wing accuses the Netherlands of acting on behalf of the U.S. to obstruct China. The ministry insists: the U.S. was not involved; Europe risked losing chip factories and expertise.

**Self-Enrichment**
Nexperia, headquartered in Nijmegen, produces affordable chips used in various electronics. The wafers—round discs on which these chips are made—are manufactured in Manchester and Hamburg. Most of these chips are processed by a “back-end” factory in Dongguan, China. Wing intended to move all wafer production to China, under another of his companies, WingSkySemi. To do so, he allegedly appropriated the production recipes for chips from Nexperia’s factory in Manchester, which produces “mosfets” (simple switches). While this is standard technology, it involves trade secrets that were improperly shared with Wing’s own competing company. Dutch officials concluded that the CEO enriched himself by having Nexperia place exaggerated orders at his own chip factory and siphoned off knowledge. To preserve production for Europe, Karremans intervened.

**Geopolitics**
Until last summer, Wing had cooperated to give Nexperia a more European management structure, aiming to ease concerns among customers and governments about Chinese influence over the chipmaker. But in July, Wing appointed Chinese figureheads to strip Nexperia of its assets. The trigger for Wing’s actions was geopolitical pressure: his company, Wingtech Technologies, had already been blacklisted by the Americans, and the U.S. was preparing to extend those restrictions to subsidiaries—including Nexperia.

To the outside world, it appears the Dutch state acted under U.S. pressure. However, Minister Karremans previously called it “pure coincidence” that tightened U.S. trade restrictions were announced on the same day he issued his order.

The Chinese ambassador was immediately warned once Karremans made his decision. China responded with an export ban on the Dongguan factory, and since then, the Ministry of Economic Affairs has been in almost daily negotiations with China to find a solution. The Dongguan factory is no longer under the control of Nexperia’s Dutch headquarters but is operating at half capacity due to the decline in wafers from Europe. Deliveries to Chinese customers continue for now.

**Enterprise Chamber**
One day after the minister’s order, a court also intervened at Nexperia. The Enterprise Chamber, a specialized division of the court handling corporate conflicts, suspended the controversial owner-director and placed Nexperia’s shares under independent management.

The ministry was aware that disgruntled Nexperia executives were considering legal action but deemed it too risky to wait for a potential case. It was uncertain whether Nexperia itself would approach the Enterprise Chamber, or if executives would be dismissed in the meantime, and it was unclear how long a court ruling would take or what it would entail.

These interventions now seem redundant, but the Ministry of Economic Affairs still considers it too risky to revoke the exceptional order. Nexperia executives could withdraw their case at any moment, or the court could issue a different interim ruling. The Enterprise Chamber has only made a preliminary decision.

Officials “discovered” the never-before-used 1952 law themselves, viewing it as the only way to prevent Nexperia’s dismantling. More recent legislation allowing the minister to block geopolitically sensitive takeovers could not be applied, as Nexperia had already fallen into foreign hands before those rules were introduced.

Something has been done, yes, but it should not have been allowed to be sold in the first place then.

It looks like the EU will have to ban Chinese people from owning more than 50% of any company in Europe, as otherwise, the Chinese will get the right to all the intellectual property.
If we continue this logic, it means that no one but Europeans can own European companies 

TIL its illegal to steal from yourself

Like “a dog ate my homework”, the story keeps changing and none of them are very convincing. A company cannot ‘steal IP’ from itself, it owns it, it can do what it wants with it.

Even if it were true, it wouldn’t justify an illegal seizure.

This board is racist so they’ll say China bad but it’s obvious to everyone this was done to please America. It’s illegal and China was right in this case.

There was a clear effort to dismantle Nexperia in multiple simultaneous efforts:

* The Chinese owner was illegally transferring trade secrets to a separate competing company that he owned.

* There were plans to shut down manufacturing facilities in Europe and move them fully to China, which would create a Chinese workforce familiar with the intricacies of the work and enable a seamless transition to a new wholly Chinese company in the future.

Executives at the company had been unsettled by the new Chinese ownership‘s decisions long enough that they brought a lawsuit against them – but that would have taken months or years to work its way through the courts, more than enough time for the Chinese to strip the company’s assets.

It’s important to remember that Nexperia makes chips for the low end of the market, a segment that China already dominates. Their efforts to steal trade secrets from ASML’s DUV machines are also linked to the low end of the market in semiconductor fabrication.

This is part of a deliberate Chinese strategy to damage the manufacturing sector of other countries, by seizing such a large swath of the technological pathway that it makes it difficult to justify further development into semiconductor fabrication for any country that isn’t already ahead of China. 

It’s not that different from why there are so few large car manufacturers that are from Africa and South America, they basically have to compete against rivals who have decades (or even a century or more) of investment and industrial development. China wants to put the rest of the world into in a similar role as Africa and South America is to Europe and North America, with regards to semiconductors and other sophisticated electronics.

So end free trade when it stops benefitting you? 

The thief is now coming up with all sorts of excuses for its theft. Disgusting

Well, then we should cancel and sell to the British with everything they stolen….

This is just an excuse and a dumb one at that (since that owning the company also gives control of the IPs), the real reason is that they caved to US pressures… And now the whole EU economy will pay for it, not only Chinese investors are starting to question investments in the EU but also the Dutch have created a chip shortage since that the Nexperia chips are packaged in the PRC and that they have stopped deliveries in retaliation; Bosh has already come out saying that they might have to stop production, other are soon to follow.