Engineers Found Guilty of Stealing Micron Secrets for China
- Chipmaker UMC fined NT$100 million for its employees’ crimes
- IP theft is a major flash point in U.S.-China trade war
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A Taiwanese court ruled Friday that current and former engineers from United Microelectronics Corp. stole trade secrets from U.S. chipmaker Micron Technology Inc. and shared them with a government-backed mainland Chinese company, closing one chapter of a global dispute that’s stoked U.S.-Chinese tensions.
The district court of Taichung fined UMC NT$100 million ($3.4 million) after finding three engineers guilty of theft or assisting in the alleged theft. The trio was jailed for periods ranging from 4.5 to 6.5 years and fined between NT$4 million and NT$6 million.