Taiwan Charges Tokyo Electron Subsidiary in TSMC Trade Theft Case
Taiwan has charged a local subsidiary of chip equipment manufacturer Tokyo Electron for failing to prevent in the alleged theft of sensitive semiconductor technology earlier this year.
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The Taiwan prosecutor’s office indicted the subsidiary, Tokyo Electron Taiwan, after saying it failed to have sufficient controls to prevent one of its former employees from stealing the technology. Taiwan said that violated the company’s “supervisory obligations” under Taiwan’s National Security Act, according to a notice that Tokyo Electron posted to its website last week.
Although the Tokyo Electron subsidiary “had general and cautionary internal rules in place,” it also “lacked sufficient evidence of concrete preventive control measures,” the notice said. “Based on this view, the Taiwan prosecutor office has deemed that Tokyo Electron Taiwan Ltd. should bear corporate criminal responsibility.”
Tokyo Electron stressed that the indictment doesn’t allege “any organizational involvement” by the Japan-based firm or its Taiwanese subsidiary “in directing or encouraging the former employee to improperly obtain information, nor does it identify any external leakage of the relevant confidential information.” The company added that its internal investigation also “found no organizational involvement or external leakage.”
The announcement came after Taiwan detained multiple people in July following an internal investigation by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., which revealed that they allegedly stole TSMC trade secrets (see 2508050043 and 2508060022). Tokyo Electron later said one of its former employees was involved, and local media at the time reported that the stolen information concerned “cutting-edge chips with a circuit line width of 2 nanometers” (see 2508070021).
Tokyo Electron said it treats technology protections “as one of our highest management priorities,” adding that it employs “experts to prevent and detect information leaks based on industry-leading security standards.”
“Nevertheless, to ensure that such incidents never occur again, we will further reinforce our compliance and audit systems,” including those of Tokyo Electron Taiwan, the company said. “We remain fully committed to improving our corporate value and meeting the expectations of all our stakeholders.”
Taiwan prosecutors said Tokyo Electron’s subsidiary faces fines of up to about $3.8 million if convicted, according to Reuters.