South Korea: Samsung's ex-executive charged with stealing trade secrets

By Necva Tastan

ISTANBUL (AA) - A local court in South Korea on Monday indicted a former senior executive of Samsung Electronics for stealing trade secrets in order to build an alleged copycat chip plant in China.

The Suwon District Prosecutors Office in northwestern Gyeonggi Province indicted the 65-year-old former executive, whose name has been withheld, was charged with violating the industrial technology protection and unfair competition prevention laws, Yonhap News reported.

The former official is accused of attempting to build a complete replica of Samsung's semiconductor factory in China after illegally obtaining the company's confidential data, including chip plant basic engineering data (BED) and process layout and design drawings, from August 2018 to 2019, the news agency said.

BED technology ensures impurity-free semiconductor manufacturing facilities, while process layout includes information on the floor plan and dimensions of a chip plant's core processes for semiconductor production, it added.

The prosecution also indicted six other people without detention on charges of colluding in the alleged technology leak, including one employee of a Samsung Electronics subcontractor and five employees of a Chinese chipmaker set up by the former executive, the media outlet said.

The former executive allegedly received a 460 billion won (approximately $353,000) investment from Chinese investors and used Samsung's technology to produce trial products at a chip manufacturing plant in Chengdu in Sichuan Province, last year, the report added.