Russian Ex-ASML Employee Faces Court in IP Theft Case
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Rotterdam court is set to have an initial hearing on Monday in the case of a former Russian employee of Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML who is suspected of having stolen intellectual property.
A spokesperson for the country's national financial crimes office confirmed that an initial pretrial hearing will take place on Monday, without verifying details of the case initially reported by television program Nieuwsuur on Friday.
Nieuwsuur said the unnamed male suspect is a 43-year-old Russian national who allegedly earned tens of thousands of euros (dollars) by selling manuals owned by ASML and its Mapper subsidiary to Russian buyers.
A spokesperson for ASML said the company was aware of the criminal case.
"In accordance with our policy, we have also filed a complaint ourselves," they said, adding they would not comment further while the legal processes are running.
Nieuwsuur reported that the suspect was in custody. It was not clear when he had been arrested.
ASML bought Mapper, a Dutch firm, out of bankruptcy for 75 million euros ($79 million) in 2019. That, according to the 2024 book, Focus: The ASML Way, assuaged concerns by the Dutch government and U.S. military that it would be taken over by a Russian or Chinese buyer.
Mapper was trying to make a lithography product similar to ASML's, but using electrons rather than light to print the tiny circuitry of chips, a technology known as E-beam.
That product did not succeed but the fast-growing ASML integrated the firm's 100 engineers into its smaller metrology, or chip-measuring, business.
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(Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
