Wingtech demands €6.8b compensation for Nexperia intervention

Chinese technology firm Wingtech is demanding €6.8 billion in compensation from the Dutch state for its intervention in its Nijmegen-based subsidiary Nexperia last year.

The company claims the actions of caretaker economic affairs minister Vincent Karremans harmed its supply chains, caused $1 billion (€850 mln) financial losses and auditing problems, and threatened its listing on the Shanghai stock exchange.

Karremans invoked a previously unused law from 1952 to place the company under state supervision, claiming that he was acting to stop production and expertise being moved to China.

At the same time, the Dutch company court suspended Nexperia’s CEO, Zhang Xuezheng, known as Wing, and placed the shares owned by his company Wingtech under administrative control.

China retaliated by imposing an export ban on chips to European customers, including the car industry, bringing production to a standstill in countries such as Germany.

Karremans defended his actions in an interview with the Guardian and said he had been told by people with knowledge of the company that Wingtech was preparing to transfer intellectual property from Hamburg to China.

But he later said in a debate in parliament in December that he “could certainly have handled things differently.”

In February the Enterprise Chamber of the Court of Amsterdam upheld the suspension of Zhang and ordered an investigation into Nexperia’s operations, after deciding there were “valid reasons to doubt the sound policy and conduct of business”.

Nexperia makes transistors in bulk which are used in European-manufactured cars, phones and solar panels.

The company was placed on a trade blacklist by the US government last year, around the time the case first came to court, but the Dutch government denied it had acted under pressure from Washington.