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Semiconductor / AI Company Investigations —
Reference List
Scope: Investigations, enforcement actions, and regulatory probes surfaced across our
research, focused on roughly mid-2024 through July 2026.
Antitrust / Competition
Nvidia — US DOJ antitrust investigation opened Aug 2024 (subpoenas Sept 2024) into
alleged dominance abuse in AI chips (~80%+ share). Parallel inquiries in the EU, UK, and
South Korea. China’s SAMR opened a probe Dec 2024 and issued a preliminary finding
on Sept 15, 2025 that Nvidia violated China’s Anti-Monopoly Law by breaching
conditions on its 2020 Mellanox acquisition.
Texas Instruments / ON Semiconductor — swept into China’s Sept 2025 antidumping
investigation of certain US-made analog chips, plus a separate Chinese “anti-discrimination” probe into US chip measures.
Broadcom (AVGO) — EU/UK competition scrutiny of the $69B VMware deal (cleared
2023 with commitments); since then, ongoing EU heat over VMware licensing. Cloud
trade group CISPE filed suit at the EU General Court in July 2025 seeking to annul the
original merger approval.
HPE — US DOJ sued Jan 30, 2025 to block the ~$14B Juniper Networks acquisition;
settled with DOJ on June 28, 2025, clearing the deal to close.
Qualcomm — China’s SAMR opened an antitrust investigation in Oct 2025 into Qualcomm’s acquisition of Autotalks, alleging it closed in June 2025 without requiredChinese clearance. (Separately, Qualcomm is the complainant against Arm in the
US/EU/Korea, 2025.)
FTC AI-partnership study — Section 6(b) orders issued Jan 2024 to Alphabet,
Amazon, Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI over the Microsoft–OpenAI, Amazon–
Anthropic, and Google–Anthropic deals. Market study, not a law-enforcement action;
staff report issued Jan 2025.
Export-Control Enforcement (DOJ / Commerce–BIS)
Cadence Design Systems — agreed to plead guilty July 28, 2025 to criminal export-
control violations for selling EDA tools/IP to China’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT); total penalties above $140M.
Synopsys / Siemens EDA (with Cadence) — recipients of BIS “is informed” letters in May 2025 temporarily freezing EDA licenses to China (rescinded July 2025); Synopsys reported under ongoing scrutiny.
Applied Materials — multiple subpoenas over shipments to SMIC allegedly routed through South Korea: Commerce/BIS (Nov 2023), US Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts (Aug 2022 and Feb 2024), SEC (Feb 2024), plus a DOJ request tied to
CHIPS Act grant applications (2024). A ~$252.5M BIS penalty was reported as resolving
part of this — needs direct confirmation.
GlobalFoundries — BIS mitigated penalty (reported ~$500K) for an export to SJS
Semiconductor, an SMIC-related Entity List party, missed due to a transaction-screening
data-entry error. Investigated by BIS’s Boston field office. Exact date to confirm
(appears 2025).
ASML — US Commerce (Secretary Lutnick) raised concerns in June 2026 over whether
an EUV machine or components reached China; potential BIS enforcement looming.
ASML denies any EUV system is in China. Active/unresolved.
Operation Gatekeeper (DOJ) — announced Dec 8, 2025; dismantled a China-linked
network that moved at least $160M of restricted Nvidia H100/H200 GPUs.
Northern District of Georgia indictments — March 2026 criminal complaints charging a Chinese national and two US citizens with conspiring to smuggle AI technology toChina.
Super Micro (SMCI) — SDNY indictment March 2026 charged individuals including co-founder Wally Liaw with export violations tied to diverting Nvidia chips to China; Taiwan office raids on/around June 29, 2026. (See also accounting entry below.)
Entegris — Commerce suspended its permission to ship to SMIC as part of the same
crackdown.
TSMC (2nm engineers) — three current/former employees detained Aug 2025 and indicted Aug 27, 2025 over 2nm-process secrets; prosecutors sought 7–14 year terms under national-security/trade-secret law. A Tokyo Electron (Taiwan) employee was
dismissed in connection.
TSMC ex-SVP Wei-Jen (Wen-jen) Lo / Intel — TSMC filed a civil trade-secret suit Nov
25, 2025 alleging Lo took 2nm/A16/A14 material to Intel; prosecutors raided his Taipei
and Hsinchu homes Nov 26, 2025. Runs as parallel civil + criminal (National Security
Act) tracks. Intel backs Lo and disputes the allegations.
Samsung / SK Hynix → CXMT (DRAM) — South Korean prosecutors indicted 10 people
in Dec 2025, including a Samsung executive, for allegedly passing core DRAM technology to China’s CXMT; one defendant sentenced to 7 years in April 2026.
Samsung Display (OLED) — Seoul police raided the Asan campus in Oct 2025 over an alleged OLED-technology leak to a Chinese competitor.
SK Hynix — separate case involving a former employee who joined a Huawei subsidiary
(HiSilicon).
Google (GPU/TPU) — a former engineer convicted of stealing GPU and TPU trade
secrets tied to Chinese interests.
Accounting / Securities
Super Micro (SMCI) — DOJ probe reported Sept 2024 after Hindenburg alleged
accounting manipulation; company disclosed DOJ and SEC subpoenas received late
2024. Auditor EY resigned (replaced by BDO); multiple shareholder class actions.
Internal review found no misconduct but recommended replacing the CFO.
Intel (INTC) — securities class action over alleged misstatements about the Foundry
business (filed 2024; dismissed with prejudice 2025). Parallel derivative suits named Gelsinger and Zinsner. Separate consumer suit over Raptor Lake instability. Private litigation, not a government investigation of Intel itself.
Cybersecurity / Regulatory Review
Micron — China’s Cyberspace
Administration (CAC) opened a cybersecurity review in March 2023 and, on May 21,
2023, declared Micron’s products a security risk, barring critical-infrastructure operators from buying them. Widely read as retaliation for US export controls.
AMD — no raid, executive probe, or DOJ/SEC investigation as a target in the window.
Appears only as a regulated party (e.g., MI308/MI325X in export/tariff rules) and in
adjacent litigation. Historical items (1990s SEC disclosure settlement, 2008 FTC–Intel
antitrust matter where AMD was the beneficiary, 2015–2019 Bulldozer “8-core” class
action, 2022/2024 data-breach claims) are older and separate.
Marvell — SEC matters are old (2019 “pull-in” revenue settlement; 2008 stock-option
backdating). Nothing found in the last two years.
Confidence / Gaps Solid, well-documented: Nvidia (all jurisdictions), Cadence, HPE/Juniper,
Qualcomm/Autotalks, Applied Materials subpoenas, Super Micro (both accounting and
smuggling)