Four South Koreans were charged on Dec. 22 for allegedly leaking cutting-edge semiconductor technologies to a Chinese company. According to JoongAng Ilbo newspaper, an unnamed South Korean company—coined ‘company A’— illegally obtained the sensitive technology from another South Korean company—’company B’—and then sold it on to a newly-established semiconductor company in China. The alleged illegal activity took place between August 2015 and January 2016 and occurred when company B poached an executive from company A to work on a semiconductor-related project. Upon leaving the job, the executive took sensitive technology from company A without authorization and brought it to company B which allegedly then sold the technology to a Chinese company. The stolen technology is a design drawing of “Hot Zone,” said to be cutting-edge equipment for manufacturing semiconductor chips that company B invested a large amount of time and capital in creating. Through the application of the alleged stolen technology, the …