Global Courant
SEOUL — South Korean prosecutors said they charged a former executive of Samsung Electronics on Monday on suspicion of stealing the company’s technology to build a chip factory in China.
The defendant, who also previously worked as vice president at SK Hynix, is accused of illegally obtaining data from Samsung between 2018 and 2019 to build a factory in the northwestern Chinese city of Xi’an, the prosecution said. from Suwon. in a statement.
The date of the trial has yet to be confirmed by the local court where the charges have been filed.
The defendant, who was arrested in May, spent a combined 28 years working at the South Korean chip makers, prosecutors said. The officials have not identified the suspect.
Reuters could not immediately reach the defendant for comment.
The former Samsung manager allegedly tried to build the factory 1.5 km away from Samsung’s chip factory in Xi’an after setting up a semiconductor company, prosecutors said.
However, the attempt to build the new plant using Samsung data ended in failure due to funding issues, a prosecutor said.
Prosecutors said they have also charged six other people for their involvement in the alleged crime, including an employee of an inspection company accused of leaking the architectural plan of Samsung’s semiconductor plant.
Prosecutors said they estimate the theft of the data caused Samsung Electronics at least 30 billion won (S$31.2 million) in losses.
“It is a serious crime that could deal a serious blow to our economic security by shaking the foundations of the domestic chip industry at a time of increasing competition in chip production,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix declined to comment.
The indictment comes after South Korea vowed to step up support for its chip sector.
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has described industry competition as an “all-out war” amid heightened Sino-American tensions.
South Korean Samsung and SK Hynix, the world’s two largest makers of memory chips, have invested billions of dollars in chip factories in China. REUTERS
