The ministry of economic affairs intervened out of a fear that crucial technological skills and capacities will leave the Netherlands and Europe. The ministry stated in a press release[1] that there was a threat of a "knowledge leak" (w/e that means exactly) and a possible threat to the European economy.
After this intervention the Dutch government can now stop or reverse decisions within the company. That's only allowed if those decisions are harmful to the interests of the company, or for the future of the company as a Dutch or European business, or to the retaining of this crucial value chain for europe.
The company can appeal this decision in court.
For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used. As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops, I am inclined to believe that something quite significant was about to happen for this law to get invoked. What exactly that was can for now only be speculated about.
I can recommend you run google translate (or equivalent) on the press release. It's as close as you can get to the source of this news for now. I can only imagine the government is going to be having plenty of debates on the topic coming up, seeing as this is a very rare use of a very heavy-handed tool.
> For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used.
Interesting parallel here with China recently invoking - for the first time - their own legislation from the 50's to ban rare earth exports for military uses.
I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something. That conforms to local regulations. But now The Dutch government says "we have this new power over you" and that is that. With the consequence presumably being export control on dutch tech, banning from their market, etc? Or were there any more hooks planted that make it easier to force compliance? For example -- and I assume this is not the case in the Netherlands -- in China there is a 51% ownership of the foreign company by a local company (which is more or less state controlled).
Germany implemented something similar like this after China took over Kuka (industry leading robotics) and practically build an entire industry of robotics in China after that.
Everybody is a fan of free access and capital markets, until a foreign entity purchases something of importance.
It’s a continuation of recent trends and closing markets.
Nobody in their sane mind would allow a company like ASML or the likes to be purchased by competitors.
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
We have a similar law in Italy, but, not having much advanced technology foreigners are willing to buy, the government uses it to prevent foreigners from buying washing machine manufacturers.
This seems similar to the UK government taking control, though not ownership, of British Steel earlier in the year [0] as the Chinese owner was expected to shut down their blast furnaces, an action that could not be easily reversed - if possible at all. One difference is that the UK government rushed through new legislation [1] to allow this, vs the Dutch government using powers they have had for decades.
The company was warned multiple times prior to this happening, to adjust course. They didn't. Now they got into hot water and claim they were unjustly nationalized.
They can have their day in an impartial court of law. If they're right they will prevail.
I'm also inclined to believe the reason for the decision was intelligence and not politics, because if it was political the parties responsible likely wouldn't shut up about until the next election. As of now there's been effectively 0 reaction from any political party. Though maybe that will change.
Some new information has just emerged in the Dutch press.
According to a just published article by the NRC newspaper [0], the owner wanted to use Nexperia's funds to finance another business (WingSkySemi) which was in financial trouble. He would have done this by making Nexperia place large orders for wafers it did not need. The article mentions Nexperia only requiring $70-80 million in wafers, while Nexperia would have ordered wafers from WingSkySemi with a value of $200 million.
In order to achieve this, the owner is said to have put strawmen without financial experience in place and fire European directors. When other directors raised the alarm about this, they were fired according to the article.
This issue was raised to the Dutch government, which then intervened.
Have a look at the original article through google translate, it provides a lot of interesting and important details to this story.
What is interesting here is that for obvious reasons the Chinese do not seem to understand - or be able to understand - that NL actually has an independent institute for handling such disputes that will operate with a fairly high degree of impartiality. Abusing funds of one company and jeopardizing its existence in order to prop up a non-related entity abroad is precisely the kind of situation why we have this institution in the first place. Mismanagement is - regardless of who the shareholders are - also something that we frown upon here and there actually is a mechanism to directly intervene in the case of such actions. Seeing the 3 top financial people replaced with strawmen and funneling large amounts of money abroad to buy things the company does not need is a surefire recipe for intervention. This would have also happened if the CEO had been dutch and the shareholders had been dutch, we actually had such a case in the last few years where the top guy (founder, even) at one of our larger IT companies lost his marbles.
The press is full of contradictory information, so it is hard to guess which is the truth.
This information about misdeeds of the CEO looks like a very convenient excuse for the Dutch government, while another article published in the press claims that, according to newly published court proceedings, already at a meeting in June between US officials and Dutch officials USA had requested the removal of the Chinese CEO by the Dutch, as a condition for not enforcing export controls over Nexperia.
Both claims could be true, USA has pressured Netherlands to remove the Chinese CEO, then the Dutch have investigated the CEO to find a reason to intervene and they have found this dubious deal where he bought a double amount of wafers compared to the actual needs.
This deal may be abusive, but it looks rather mild in comparison with how most CEOs mishandle the assets of their companies. I doubt that there are many CEOs against whom a thorough investigation would not find such deals. Here at least he got usable semiconductor wafers, but many such deals are for valueless software or consulting.
>As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops
Why do you think this? The Netherlands economy seems be pretty good compared with other countries. Growth is slower but that's partially due to US tariffs.
Is it just a standard thing now to say "the government are idiots" or they are making huge mistakes. Don't you think they creates a long term issue where people are never satisfied and constantly electing a new government. Maybe this causes the government to focus on short term wins to avoid that.
In my completely uninformed opinion I think China is taking their toys and going home.
The UK gov stepped in to stop a Chinese firm closing our steel mill. Capitalism wasn't made to handle large strategic foreign investments closing their own company at nationally inopportune moments.
It feels like a slow burn of embrace, extend, extinguish but playing out on global critical technology and industry.
The UK used its National Security & Investment Act (2021) to order divestment of Nexperia’s Newport Wafer Fab in Nov 2022. The UK ordered them to sell 86% of the stake due to National Security concerns
Let's be real here, a European company wouldn't even have been allowed to buy a Chinese company in China and have the level of control as in this case in the first place.
Great. Absolutely outstanding from the Dutch government, to not let China dominate Europe however it wants.
Securing a Chip industry independent from China, Taiwan and the US has to be the top long term security interest. I only hope that the EU can use it's power to make things like this more feasible and to keep Europe independent from US/Chinese interests.
I'm currently blazing through "Chip War" and can't put it down. This news is fascinating in that context. I highly recommend the book to anyone who hasn't read it.
I don't understand why this suddenly happened (except if asked by the USG in response to the recent scare/reality over rare earths).
The 50% ownership by a sanctioned entity was a reality for a while, and was an issue as soon as the purchase. This didn't change recently. So, this action should have been part of the pre-purchase review (CFIUS in the US...I assume there is an equivalent in China). On the face of it, this all could have been avoided by having a non-sanctioned entity (including another random Chinese company) own enough of the company to get sanctioned entity ownership below 50%.
Time to quote one of my favourite lines in the Godfather franchise. Probably totally unrelated.
“We gladly put you at the helm of our little fleet, but our ships must all sail in the same direction. Otherwise, who can say how long your stay with us will last. It's not personal, it's only business. You should know, Godfather”
The timing is weird, just after Trump's latest escalation with China. Using The Netherlands to fall into the sword would fit with the general tactics of dumping the Ukraine war on the EU and trying to sour their relations with China.
That way, the U.S. is free to control all oil resources in the Middle East and conquer new ones in Venezuela. The EU gets nothing but enemies and higher oil and gas prices.
In principle I'm against outsourcing or technology transfers to China, but please do it on you own schedule.
50 years of sending all the knowledge to China and now sudden realization that „data is the value”. Work was cheap, but we paid in IP and tech as a whole.
It’s great to see how long term is China strategy and how well they execute it.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
Nexperia was formed because back in 2017 (if I remember correctly) Qualcomm wanted to buy NXP. So NXP wanted to look more attractive to Qualcomm shareholders and sold its more low-tech business unit to Chinese investors. That acquisition didn't go through because of the tensions between US and China during the first Trump admin.
NXP has been trimming fat since its formation from Philips Semiconductors and American or Chinese companies are buying whatever business unit they can grab. They pretty much buy it for the IP and the customers. Once they get the IP they usually fore the whole team and shut dient operations in NL.
Nexperia wasn't doing this though. They had no interesting technology to steal oe transfer to China to begin with.
Expect more of this to come, it's an unstated goal of the Chinese Communist Party to deindustrialize the West, the UK had to intervene too a few months ago to stop them from destroying their steel producing capacity.
I'm not seeing any mention of the Entity List ITT, which seems like the real reason. Via SCMP:
>Some analysts said the move by the Dutch ministry resulted from a new rule issued by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, the agency responsible for export control policies. The rule, effective September 29, imposed new restrictions on entities which are at least 50 per cent owned by enterprises on the Entity List or the Military End-User List – two blacklists issued by the US government.
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[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 121 ms ] threadThat governmental decision was surely not taken lightly, it's a significant move with high risk of increasing geopolitical tension...
The ministry of economic affairs intervened out of a fear that crucial technological skills and capacities will leave the Netherlands and Europe. The ministry stated in a press release[1] that there was a threat of a "knowledge leak" (w/e that means exactly) and a possible threat to the European economy.
After this intervention the Dutch government can now stop or reverse decisions within the company. That's only allowed if those decisions are harmful to the interests of the company, or for the future of the company as a Dutch or European business, or to the retaining of this crucial value chain for europe.
The company can appeal this decision in court.
For context, the law that allows this all to happen was passed in 1952 and has never before been used. As much as I think our government is currently ran by a bunch of nincompoops, I am inclined to believe that something quite significant was about to happen for this law to get invoked. What exactly that was can for now only be speculated about.
I can recommend you run google translate (or equivalent) on the press release. It's as close as you can get to the source of this news for now. I can only imagine the government is going to be having plenty of debates on the topic coming up, seeing as this is a very rare use of a very heavy-handed tool.
[0] https://nos.nl/artikel/2586270-kabinet-grijpt-hard-in-bij-ch...
[1] https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/actueel/nieuws/2025/10/12/wet-b...
Interesting parallel here with China recently invoking - for the first time - their own legislation from the 50's to ban rare earth exports for military uses.
I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something. That conforms to local regulations. But now The Dutch government says "we have this new power over you" and that is that. With the consequence presumably being export control on dutch tech, banning from their market, etc? Or were there any more hooks planted that make it easier to force compliance? For example -- and I assume this is not the case in the Netherlands -- in China there is a 51% ownership of the foreign company by a local company (which is more or less state controlled).
And of course, the jobs disappeared from Germany.
It’s a continuation of recent trends and closing markets.
Nobody in their sane mind would allow a company like ASML or the likes to be purchased by competitors.
But the irony is that when a non-European entity were to do something like this, e.g. nationalize their oil or mining etc. industry or a firm, the whole hell would brake loose.
Here is an example how China raided and took over Chinese ARM subsidiary, along with all stolen western IP.
https://newsletter.semianalysis.com/p/the-semiconductor-heis...
any idea what we the rationale/reason to pass that law in the first place? any specific endangered war resource at the time?
(Not saying China is playing fair btw, just saying there's a vast amount of underused intellectual resources in Europe.)
What I don't see in the official announcement is the nature of the emergency in this case.
Ref: https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0002098/2021-07-01/
At least in my tongue - this would mean “brain drain”.
[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y66y40kgpo
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_Industry_(Special_Measur...
They can have their day in an impartial court of law. If they're right they will prevail.
According to a just published article by the NRC newspaper [0], the owner wanted to use Nexperia's funds to finance another business (WingSkySemi) which was in financial trouble. He would have done this by making Nexperia place large orders for wafers it did not need. The article mentions Nexperia only requiring $70-80 million in wafers, while Nexperia would have ordered wafers from WingSkySemi with a value of $200 million.
In order to achieve this, the owner is said to have put strawmen without financial experience in place and fire European directors. When other directors raised the alarm about this, they were fired according to the article. This issue was raised to the Dutch government, which then intervened.
Have a look at the original article through google translate, it provides a lot of interesting and important details to this story.
[0] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/10/14/chinese-topman-gebruikt...
This information about misdeeds of the CEO looks like a very convenient excuse for the Dutch government, while another article published in the press claims that, according to newly published court proceedings, already at a meeting in June between US officials and Dutch officials USA had requested the removal of the Chinese CEO by the Dutch, as a condition for not enforcing export controls over Nexperia.
https://www.politico.eu/article/us-pressured-the-netherlands...
Both claims could be true, USA has pressured Netherlands to remove the Chinese CEO, then the Dutch have investigated the CEO to find a reason to intervene and they have found this dubious deal where he bought a double amount of wafers compared to the actual needs.
This deal may be abusive, but it looks rather mild in comparison with how most CEOs mishandle the assets of their companies. I doubt that there are many CEOs against whom a thorough investigation would not find such deals. Here at least he got usable semiconductor wafers, but many such deals are for valueless software or consulting.
Why do you think this? The Netherlands economy seems be pretty good compared with other countries. Growth is slower but that's partially due to US tariffs.
Is it just a standard thing now to say "the government are idiots" or they are making huge mistakes. Don't you think they creates a long term issue where people are never satisfied and constantly electing a new government. Maybe this causes the government to focus on short term wins to avoid that.
The UK gov stepped in to stop a Chinese firm closing our steel mill. Capitalism wasn't made to handle large strategic foreign investments closing their own company at nationally inopportune moments.
It feels like a slow burn of embrace, extend, extinguish but playing out on global critical technology and industry.
It’s like they beg China to do something with Taiwan.
The UK used its National Security & Investment Act (2021) to order divestment of Nexperia’s Newport Wafer Fab in Nov 2022. The UK ordered them to sell 86% of the stake due to National Security concerns
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/acquisition-of-ne...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg17g39x41o
Securing a Chip industry independent from China, Taiwan and the US has to be the top long term security interest. I only hope that the EU can use it's power to make things like this more feasible and to keep Europe independent from US/Chinese interests.
The 50% ownership by a sanctioned entity was a reality for a while, and was an issue as soon as the purchase. This didn't change recently. So, this action should have been part of the pre-purchase review (CFIUS in the US...I assume there is an equivalent in China). On the face of it, this all could have been avoided by having a non-sanctioned entity (including another random Chinese company) own enough of the company to get sanctioned entity ownership below 50%.
“We gladly put you at the helm of our little fleet, but our ships must all sail in the same direction. Otherwise, who can say how long your stay with us will last. It's not personal, it's only business. You should know, Godfather”
— The late venerable Don Lucchesi
You don't get into the China market without losing control.
They have a not huge but very nice line-up of GaN fet devices too. I'd been looking through their line-up here just lack week!
Just fun to see what's on offer here. I couldn't find a latest listings by manufacturer for Nexperia, which is one of my favorite Mouser views.
That way, the U.S. is free to control all oil resources in the Middle East and conquer new ones in Venezuela. The EU gets nothing but enemies and higher oil and gas prices.
In principle I'm against outsourcing or technology transfers to China, but please do it on you own schedule.
Good luck for us all being „independent”. We can make processors out of attached plastic bottle caps…
Nexperia was formed because back in 2017 (if I remember correctly) Qualcomm wanted to buy NXP. So NXP wanted to look more attractive to Qualcomm shareholders and sold its more low-tech business unit to Chinese investors. That acquisition didn't go through because of the tensions between US and China during the first Trump admin.
NXP has been trimming fat since its formation from Philips Semiconductors and American or Chinese companies are buying whatever business unit they can grab. They pretty much buy it for the IP and the customers. Once they get the IP they usually fore the whole team and shut dient operations in NL.
Nexperia wasn't doing this though. They had no interesting technology to steal oe transfer to China to begin with.
Global expenditure on 300mm fab equipment from 2026-2028 is predicted to be USD$374bn with regional breakdown as follows (totaling 100%):
China - USD$95bn (25%)
South Korea - USD$86bn (23%)
Taiwan - USD$75bn (20%)
Americas - USD$60bn (16%)
Japan - USD$32bn (9%)
Europe and Middle East - USD$14bn (4%)
Southeast Asia - USD$12bn (3%)
[1] https://www.semi.org/en/semi-press-release/semi-reports-glob...
>Some analysts said the move by the Dutch ministry resulted from a new rule issued by the US Bureau of Industry and Security, the agency responsible for export control policies. The rule, effective September 29, imposed new restrictions on entities which are at least 50 per cent owned by enterprises on the Entity List or the Military End-User List – two blacklists issued by the US government.