US warned Dutch Nexperia CEO must go to avoid entity list fallout: court

US officials told their Dutch counterparts that the Chinese CEO of Nexperia “will have to be replaced” for the company to be exempt from Washington’s entity list, newly disclosed court documents show.

The disclosure comes after the Dutch government effectively seized control of the semiconductor firm, a subsidiary of the Chinese company Wingtech, forcing a change in management under an obscure law known as the Goods Availability Act.

In doing so, the Dutch authorities removed founding CEO Zhang Xuezheng from his role, sparking fury in Beijing.

Court documents released by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal on Tuesday show that the United States told Dutch officials in June about a forthcoming change in the entity list, which bars American companies from trading with firms on the list.

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The change would see the blacklist extended to subsidiaries of those companies, in which the listed entity owns more than a 50 per cent stake. Wingtech was added to the entity list in December. It bought 100 per cent of Nijmegen-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia in October 2018.

South China Morning Post