A former executive at Samsung Electronics has been charged with stealing the South Korean company’s technology to build a rival factory in China.
The defendant, who was also a vice president at chipmaker SK Hynix, is accused of illegally using Samsung data to build a copy-cat chip manufacturing hub just 1.5 km from Samsung’s chip factory in Xian, China.
Prosecutors allege the data theft resulted in A$345 million in losses for Samsung Electronics.
“It’s a grave crime that could deal a heavy blow to our economic security by shaking the foundation of the domestic chip industry at a time of intensifying competition in chip manufacturing,” the Suwon District Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement.
The defendant, who worked for close to three decades across the two South Korean chipmakers, is denying all charges.
The arrest comes as South Korea institutes a nationwide crackdown on corporate spying and data theft in the sector.
Six other people were indicted along with the un-named former executive, including one employee who is alleged to have shared the architectural plan of Samsung’s semiconductor factory with the former executive.
Over the weekend, police arrested 77 people involved in 35 cases of suspected corporate espionage.
“We will sternly deal with any leakage of our technology abroad and strongly respond to illegal leak of domestic companies’ core technologies in semiconductor, automobile and shipbuilding sectors among others,” the police said of the blitz.
