Event: Taiwanese

A Taiwanese court has sentenced a former Tokyo Electron employee to 10 years in prison for stealing Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.’s (TSMC) proprietary data, highlighting growing alarm over industrial espionage to the island’s most strategic sector.Ex-Tokyo Electron engineer Chen Li-ming was given the sentence by Judge Chang Ming-huang at Taiwan’s Intellectual Property and Commercial Court on Monday. Four others indicted in the case were given sentences of as much as six years in prison, with one woman getting a 10-month sentence, suspended for three years. A Tokyo Electron spokesperson had no immediate comment.The hefty prison term for Chen reflects the Taiwanese government’s renewed efforts to protect its world-class semiconductor industry, which powers the global artificial intelligence rollout. TSMC is the primary chipmaker for Nvidia, Apple and Advanced Micro Devices.The court also fined Tokyo Electron’s Taiwan unit 150 million New Taiwan dollars ($4.8 million) and ordered NT$100 million to be paid to TSMC. Shares of Tokyo Electron rose 3.8% during trading in Tokyo. TSMC’s stock price gained around 6% in Taipei.Taiwan is on the alert against intellectual property theft. Attention has been on entities with ties to Beijing, which is pushing hard to develop its own chip capabilities, as well as on long-time partners. In early 2025, Taiwan started an investigation into whether China’s leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International, illegally poached local engineers as part of an effort to access the island’s cutting-edge chip technology.Last year, prosecutors also searched the homes of a former TSMC executive who joined Intel, after the Taiwanese firm accused him of potentially transferring intellectual property. The U.S. company has rejected those allegations.