The Dutch authorities mentioned on Sunday that it had taken the “extremely distinctive” resolution to intervene at Chinese language-owned chipmaker Nexperia over a possible “danger to Dutch and European financial safety.”
The Netherlands-based agency’s proprietor Wingtech mentioned on Monday that it’s going to take actions to guard its rights and can search authorities help.
The event threatens to boost tensions between the European Union and China, which have elevated in current months over commerce and Beijing’s relationship with Russia.
Nexperia was forced to sell its silicon chip plant in Newport, Wales after MPs and ministers expressed nationwide safety considerations. It at the moment owns a UK facility in Stockport.
The Dutch government said its financial affairs ministry had invoked its Items Availability Act over “acute alerts of great governance shortcomings” inside Nexperia.
The legislation is designed to permit the Hague to intervene in corporations below distinctive circumstances. These embody threats to the nation’s financial safety and to make sure the availability of crucial items.
The intervention is supposed to stop a possible state of affairs during which Nexperia’s chips would turn into unavailable in an emergency, mentioned the Dutch authorities.
It added that Nexperia’s operations posed a “risk to the continuity and safeguarding on Dutch and European soil of essential technological information and capabilities.”
The corporate’s manufacturing can proceed as regular, it added.
Nexperia makes semiconductors utilized in automobiles and client electronics.
The federal government assertion didn’t element why it thought the agency’s operations had been dangerous. A spokesperson for the minister of financial affairs informed the BBC there was no additional data to share.
The BBC has additionally contacted the Chinese language embassies within the Netherlands and Brussels.
Shanghai-listed shares in Nexperia’s father or mother firm Wingtech fell by 10% on Monday morning.
Wingtech is among the many corporations the US has positioned on its so-called “entity record”. Beneath the laws, US corporations are barred from exporting American-made items to companies on the record except they’ve particular approval.
In September, the US commerce division additional tightened its restrictions, including to the entity record any firm that’s majority-owned by a Chinese language agency.
