So companies A & B (A=TSMC, B=Tokyo Electron) are in a customer-supplier relationship. Employee B1 of B asks Employees A1 & A2 of A ask for information about how B's technology is working in practice at A, which involves revealing information about A's processes. A1 & A2 supply the information, and B2 at B uses it to improve how B does things, so they can help A more and increase their business with A. There is no allegation that the information supplied to B by A employees left B, or was used for anything except to help with the collaboration between B & A. And as far as the article mentions, no evidence A1 or A2 received a bribe or anything like that.
And yet manager A3 at A finds out about this supply and freaks out because they didn't want A1 & A2 sharing that much information with the supplier. So they make a complaint - and A1, A2, B1, B2 and B as a company all face significant penalties.
This seems unjust given A1, A2, B1 & B2 were all just trying to collaborate in the best interests of their companies, and B employees only used things freely and non-corruptly given to them by A employees; no information was leaked outside of the collaborating companies. A1 & A2 might have broken their company policies, but this probably should have ended at them being educated on the company policies and being asked not to do it again when managing future supplier relationships.
Its not unjust - its exactly what you are taught not to do, with government contracts! Its not just breaking company policy, its illegal in most countries.
Not really. This is the norms for industrial espionage, especially as Tokyo Electron is also working on the Rapidus 2nm fab project in Japan.
Furthermore, for these kinds of relationships there tend to be significant internal firewalls which were clearly overriden within TSMC.
And speaking from personal experience back in my individual contributor days in the security space, this attack path was a fairly common one for data and IP exfiltration.
> There is no allegation that the information supplied to B by A employees left B, or was used for anything except to help with the collaboration between B & A
From TFA - "The information, including trade secrets related to etching equipment used in 2-nanometer production, was photographed and reproduced to allow Tokyo Electron to evaluate and improve its equipment performance".
This was done without permission and done so by a vendor actively working on building a direct competitor to TSMC.
It turns out that you can steal from European companies with impunity because European governments really don't pursue this that much. An ex-ASML engineer (in San Jose) set up two companies XTAL in the US and Dongfang Jingyuan Electron in China and then hired people from his team on ASML, one of whom brought all the source code for one component control with him. XTAL lost the case and shut down, but this chap just went to China and ran Dongfang Jingyuan. Living large. The guy who took ASML secrets to Huawei also got away with it. In both cases, European governments haven't really pursued jail time. The US, of course, got involved and has an arrest warrant for the Dongfang Jingyuan guy that we're never going to collect on. "Uncle Sam has made his decision; now let him enforce it" so to speak.
But since writing this comment, I've now found that they got a Russian engineer for taking some ASML stuff https://www.reuters.com/technology/ex-asml-nxp-employee-sent...
His mistake was taking it to an actually sanctioned country, though. That seems to be prosecutable.
In the US, of course, you will go to jail for it. Besides the national security thing, even Anthony Levandowski was sentenced to 18 months of prison (pardoned by Donald Trump, though), and that was AV tech, not like missiles or anything.
So it seems, based on my Google-level knowledge that:
US: Lots of protected tech, and you'll go to jail.
Taiwan: Semiconductor tech is treated like we do nuclear tech, so you'll go to jail.
Most European jurisdictions: You'll have to pay fines. If you stole to a sanctioned country, straight to prison!
The ones who feel deeply about the cause don't know how to execute but only pontificate (dealt with plenty of EU AI policymakers with European AI founders).
Heck, even consulate employees who are part of the trade promotion teams for most EU states try to network their way out of the role into VC jobs in NYC and SF.
Take Finland, for example, with open list proportional elections. The primary competitors of every candidate are other candidates from the same party and district. In order to win, you have to develop and maintain your own niche. Many politicians leave to become lobbyists or consultants or join a think tank, but it's almost always a one-way street. It's difficult to return to politics after an extended absence, because someone else has already taken your niche (if it's still viable), and money and experience rarely help win it back.
As for the actual question, many European countries seem to consider trade secrets primarily a contractual matter. Revealing private secrets is not a crime, while abusing your position or breaking into a system without proper authorization can be. Prosecutors generally cannot invoke national security without a clear legal basis. Which probably can't be found in matters that are more about Western competitiveness in general than about the security and interests of a specific country.
Finland tends to have much weaker linkages with the US from a lobbying perspective - heck your Harvard Club was only founded in 1996.
Private prisons, civil asset forfeiture and property taxes are probably the three most common things the govt does that I disagree with outright on moral grounds.
Edit: why would you downvote this? Jeez…
IMO, the US govt doesn't prosecute violators, especially in terms of foreign spy programs against domestic companies nearly enough.