Leslie Caldwell and Catherine Palmer at Latham & Watkins Litigators of the Week: The Latham Team That Whittled DOJ's 'China Initiative' Case Against UMC Down to a Single-Count Plea Deal
In a case where the DOJ was initially seeking a penalty of as much as $9 billion on charges of economic espionage and trade secret theft, Latham's Leslie Caldwell and Catherine Palmer negotiated a $60 million fine and a guilty plea to one count of receiving and possessing a stolen trade secret.
November 06, 2020 at 07:30 AM
8 minute read
Two years ago Taiwanese semiconductor foundry United Microelectronics Corp. found itself in what we'll call an uncomfortable position.
In an indictment unsealed on November 1, 2018, federal prosecutors accused UMC of partnering with a state-owned Chinese enterprise to steal trade secrets related to dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, from Idaho-based semiconductor company Micron Technology. Beyond the charges of trade secret theft, the government accused UMC of participating in economic espionage and sought penalties as high as $9 billion. Then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions used the unsealing of the indictment in the case to announce the DOJ's new "China Initiative."
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