Former Samsung Display Employee Sentenced for Diverting National Core Technology to China

A former employee who diverted Samsung Display's major technologies, including national core technology, to China has been sentenced to prison.

According to the legal community on the 27th, the 11th Criminal Division of the Seoul Eastern District Court (Presiding Judge Kang Minho) sentenced Mr. Yeom (58), who was indicted on charges of violating the Act on Prevention and Protection of Industrial Technology Leakage, to 5 years in prison and a fine of 50 million won on the 16th.

Mr. Yeom, who joined Samsung Electronics in 1993, rejoined Samsung Display, which was established as a spin-off from Samsung Electronics in April 2012, and worked as a resident officer at the Suzhou production corporation in China until January 2018. He was in charge of system operation tasks at that time. From around October 2020, he was in charge of a project to sell the Suzhou corporation to a Chinese display manufacturing company, B Co., Ltd.

It was revealed that Mr. Yeom decided to move to a Chinese company while handling the sale of the Suzhou corporation. He sent technical data related to the Manufacturing Execution System (MES) analysis layer yield and quality analysis system from the Samsung Display office in Asan, Chungnam, to his work email account in March 2021 to use for his new company's tasks. MES is a real-time integrated production management system that collects, manages, and processes related information from order to product production, supporting optimal production activities and quality management, essential for implementing smart factories.

He also accessed the Samsung Display Electronic Document Management System (EDM) via his mobile phone and executed the viewing of document files registered as confidential, photographing a total of 17 document files by April.

In March of the same year, Mr. Yeom also photographed materials related to the process and manufacturing of organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) panels, which were designated and announced as national core technology by the Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy. Mr. Yeom resigned from Samsung Display in May 2021, about a month later, and moved to D Co., a subsidiary of a Chinese electronics company, C Group. He was to be in charge of supporting smart factory business and building and operating manufacturing automation systems for display and semiconductor production lines of the subsidiaries.

The court pointed out, "Mr. Yeom acquired national core technology improperly with the intention of using it abroad or having it used abroad, violating the confidentiality obligation regarding industrial technology, and leaked it with the intent to harm the company."

After moving, Mr. Yeom also transmitted big data-related trade secret data files of MES, which he had previously photographed and stored, to Chinese company employees via WeChat messenger and email from December 2021 to January of the following year.

Mr. Yeom's side argued, "I was not aware that the information was national core technology, so there was no intent," but it was not accepted. The court added, "Crimes of leaking national core technology or trade secrets can endanger the survival base of domestic companies and adversely affect national industrial competitiveness," and "It is inevitable to impose a severe punishment as he betrayed the trust relationship by taking advantage of easy access to trade secrets as an employee who worked for the Samsung Group for over 30 years and leaked information."


yesji@fnnews.com Kim Yeji, Lee Hyunjung Reporter