The Samsung Display office in Giheung, Gyeonggi [SAMSUNG DISPLAY]

 
Police have launched an investigation into suspicions that Samsung Display’s latest technology was leaked to China.
 
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency conducted a raid on Wednesday on Samsung Display’s Asan campus in South Chungcheong. Investigators suspect that an employee transferred proprietary display technology to a Chinese company, in violation of the Act on the Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology.
 
 
“We are analyzing the seized materials to determine the facts,” a police official said. “The investigation is still in its early stages.”
 
Under the law, leaking state-designated core technologies is punishable by at least three years in prison and a fine of up to 6.5 billion won ($4.6 million). Leaking general industrial technologies carries a sentence of up to 15 years or a fine of up to 3 billion won.
 
Incidents of technology leaks to China have continued. In the first half of this year alone, police detected eight such cases involving overseas recipients, five of which were traced to China. Of the 27 technology leak cases reported last year, 20 involved transfers to Chinese entities. By sector, nine involved semiconductors and eight involved display technologies.
 
Just a day earlier, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office indicted a former Samsung Electronics executive surnamed Yang along with two others on charges of using leaked technology to help ChangXin Memory Technologies — China’s first developer of 18-nanometer DRAM chips. Prosecutors said Yang was promised an annual salary of up to 3 billion won — five times what he had earned at Samsung — in return for the leak.
 
The industry has expressed growing concern over repeated leaks. Park Jun-young, executive vice president of Samsung Display, said at a parliamentary forum on Sept. 23 that “there have been 21 cases of display technology leaks over the past five years, with increasing damage, making it urgent to strengthen effective penalties and establish strong safeguards for core national technologies.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY IM SOUNG-BIN [[email protected]]