UMC and Micron announce global settlement agreement

UMC's case involving Micron's confidential information has finally made a key progress, which may also have a positive impact on Fujian Jinhua...

On the morning of November 26, UMC announced that it had reached a global settlement agreement with Micron. Both parties will withdraw their lawsuits against each other. At the same time, UMC will pay Micron a one-time confidential settlement amount. In the future, the two parties will jointly create cooperation opportunities. In addition, the settlement amount will not have a significant impact on the company's performance.

The intellectual property dispute between the three companies has lasted for four years since Micron reported that UMC was suspected of stealing trade secrets in its cooperation with Jinhua in 2017. In addition, in November 2018, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a criminal lawsuit against UMC and several employees for violating the federal trade secret protection law.

However, on October 21 last year, UMC reached a $60 million settlement agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, which immediately dropped multiple charges against UMC, including conspiracy to commit economic espionage and conspiracy to steal multiple trade secrets and patents. One year later, UMC reached an out-of-court settlement agreement with Micron today, which means that the company will completely withdraw from this storm.