Taipei [Taiwan], November 26 : Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) sued its former senior executive Lo Wei-jen on Tuesday, accusing him of violating work rules and sharing trade secrets with US chipmaker Intel, according to a report by Focus Taiwan.
The company said it moved to court after finding signs that Lo may have passed on sensitive information to a US-based competitor company, Intel Corp., soon after retiring from the world's largest contract chipmaker.
TSMC filed the lawsuit at the Intellectual Property and Commercial Court, saying Lo broke the Trade Secrets Act, as well as confidentiality and noncompete agreements he had signed while working at the company. The firm noted that his actions created a serious risk because the information he accessed related to projects still under development.
According to the report, Lo joined the company in 2004 as a vice president and became senior vice president in 2014. He retired on July 27 this year. Before retiring, he was given a new position in March 2024 as senior vice president for corporate strategy and development. The team he worked with advised the company's chairman and CEO, but did not manage or control research and development.
However, the report noted that TSMC said Lo continued to hold meetings with the R&D department and to request reports on ongoing technologies even after taking on this new role. The company said this raised concerns because he still gained access to advanced research that he was not required to oversee in his corporate strategy job.
TSMC explained that Lo had signed confidentiality and non-compete agreements as part of his employment. When he retired, the company's chief legal officer also briefed him about the legal limits he had to follow. At that time, Lo said he planned to go into teaching and did not mention any plan to work for Intel.
Later, when Lo accepted the post of executive vice president at Intel, TSMC said it suspected he was "highly likely" to have used, shared, or transferred its confidential information to the American firm. The company said his move "necessitated" legal action, and it is seeking compensation for contract violations.
The lawsuit follows an announcement last week by the Taiwan High Prosecutors' Office that it has started investigating Lo. Media reports said Lo was suspected of taking restricted details about TSMC's 2-nanometer, A16 and A14 chip processes before retiring, information considered key to future chipmaking.
"Prosecutors have yet to file criminal charges against Lo," the report said.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor