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 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.
After what I learned in the last five years, first the pandemic, then Gaza, I dont believe anything, absolutely nothing, from "western" explanations, "news channels", "newspapers", certainly no politicians but also no bureaucrats or officials, nothing.
I only look at actual actions and data and private citizens and actual scholars who wrote enough to gauge if they are knowledgeable and trustworthy from examining their past writings. Anything official or even with a whiff of "officiality" is at best unbelievable, if not countersignaling.
PS. Exception maybe FT, some macro research services like Gavekal, and science focused media. Even technology focused stuff is polluted now with the demented western anxiety and inferiority complex about China.
> 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.
How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands
Are you tracking that harvesting REM is a nasty business with a lot of “don’t look” environmental impacts? As such, most countries don’t do it, or have an infrastructure for it.
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).
> I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something.
It's not, it's a Dutch company, formed according to Dutch law, with headquarters in the Netherlands, that was bought by another Chinese company a few years ago.
Dutch law sets rules on how any company, but especially public companies (so-called naamloze vennootschappen) must be governed. Even if you own all the shares, by law you don't have unlimited and unchecked power in the company, you have to abide by governance rules.
Seemingly simultaneously with the government order, a suit was brought to the court enforcing these laws (the Ondernemingskamer) alledging that the CEO and owner were not abiding by them. The court documents are a bit weird to me as a non-lawyer, with Nexperia named as both plaintiff and defendant, so I'm not sure who brought it, but it might've been the government, who are named as a party.
The court agreed that the suit could have merit, and as an interim measure while the legal proceedings play out, has suspended the CEO and named a temporary director. It also suspended the authority of the owners over their shares (except for one), and assigned a trustee to manage them temporarily. The court did not actually rule on the contents of the suit yet, it only issued interim conservatory measures. We'll likely hear more about how the suit plays out over the next few months.
An interesting matter of contention in the suit is that the CEO/owner want the CLO to be suspended, while the other side asks the court to prohibit firing of the CLO. I presume there has been a conflict in the board, either leading to or caused by the government order.
Maybe pressure from the US gov? As a negotiatingtactic vs China - remeber the moves against MotorSich in Ukraine some years back , where the deal was win-win for both but Washington put the kibosh on it and ultimately got destroyed by Russian offensive.
Since the speed/urgency and unusual application of the law as you mention , mean extraodinary actions must have quite extraordinary causes.
In any case still too many unknowns in the story , hopefully clarity ensues soonest.
Believe it or not, but the dutch government has agency. It's not impossible for US pressure to be a factor, but I think it's more likely the management of the company was planning to move production to china or something like that. That'd (rightly!) spook the government into some quick action, especially given the political climate around Russia seemingly not being content with having their war confined to Ukraine.
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
The US has immense pressure on the dutch government, given their control over ASML . Its US big tech and semi design studios that determines who will need to buy EUV from ASML. Given ASML is not allowed to do business with China, Russia etc.
Ultimately the Dutch, like for instance the Australians, are a rounding error compared to China and a pawn in a bigger game. At least the Dutch can "hide" behind the EU.
So there will noise but this won't stop China' rise and it won't stop Europe's decline, either.
Either way, it cannot be stopped, China will develop independent technology sector because they can and they have no other choice. They don't trust the West and cases like this make such attitude understandable.
As soon as China tries to compete with the rich monopolies, the "free market" goes out of the window and becomes "free to do as we tell you".
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.
the jobs didn't disappear (yet). they grew from 13.000 in 2014 before midea took over to 15.000 in 2024. maybe they could have grown more in germany if midea hadn't taken over. who knows.
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%.
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.
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
That will not happen. But yes, you are right that this decision was not taken lightly, I've only heard of one other such move in the last 50 years or so.
The Chinese propaganda machine is already making lots of waves about how NL is no longer a democracy and how this dings NL reputation abroad.
The Dutch have put restrictions on Wingtech to not make certain changes (sale or move of assets, intellectual property, company activities, employees) for a year. That should give you enough to chew on I think (and it is public knowledge). Specifically the IP and assets bits are in focus here, more so because the parent company is on a watchlist. Note that they not only kicked out the CEO - which in itself is an earth shaking move for a company this big - they also took control over the shares.
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 think its fine to have national and strategic interests. China isn't someone that you can just trust, they are exporting to Russia on the sly and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
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.
Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.
I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.
It's why I also think it is possible to hold a pro-free-market pro-tariff position simultaneously without contradiction. Tariffs could be used to "level set" manipulation from foreign governments and make the incoming goods behave as if they were not manipulated (thus also reducing the incentive to manipulate in the first place).
Not sure this is how tariffs are being used in reality.
There are many companies which the Chinese government could target in retaliation. In China foreign companies are usually minority partners in some ventures with some Chinese company.
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 late venerable Don Lucchesi
Some more context from a dutch news source[0]:
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...
After what I learned in the last five years, first the pandemic, then Gaza, I dont believe anything, absolutely nothing, from "western" explanations, "news channels", "newspapers", certainly no politicians but also no bureaucrats or officials, nothing.
I only look at actual actions and data and private citizens and actual scholars who wrote enough to gauge if they are knowledgeable and trustworthy from examining their past writings. Anything official or even with a whiff of "officiality" is at best unbelievable, if not countersignaling.
PS. Exception maybe FT, some macro research services like Gavekal, and science focused media. Even technology focused stuff is polluted now with the demented western anxiety and inferiority complex about China.
> 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.
Probably not an awesome sign if multiple actors are invoking never-used laws that were created while WWII was still fresh on everyone's mind.
Let’s hope this one is still cold.
How can you say what the minerals were actually used for though is the question I always have in these types of situations. There are multiple uses of the minerals. Since I've now gotten a literal boat load of the minerals from you, I can use those minerals on other things which now frees up my personal source of minerals on the things you didn't want them used in. In the spirit of the agreement, I'm in full compliance all while achieving the thing you didn't want me to achieve. It's nothing but Pilate washing his hands
Are you tracking that harvesting REM is a nasty business with a lot of “don’t look” environmental impacts? As such, most countries don’t do it, or have an infrastructure for it.
https://rareearthexchanges.com/best-rare-earth-mining-compan...
Plenty of US companies ready and willing. They've finally gotten an administration that is of like mind on screw the environment and dig dig dig.
So, you agree?
So what just happened logistically?
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).
> I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company without some Dutch sponsor or something.
It's not, it's a Dutch company, formed according to Dutch law, with headquarters in the Netherlands, that was bought by another Chinese company a few years ago.
Dutch law sets rules on how any company, but especially public companies (so-called naamloze vennootschappen) must be governed. Even if you own all the shares, by law you don't have unlimited and unchecked power in the company, you have to abide by governance rules.
Seemingly simultaneously with the government order, a suit was brought to the court enforcing these laws (the Ondernemingskamer) alledging that the CEO and owner were not abiding by them. The court documents are a bit weird to me as a non-lawyer, with Nexperia named as both plaintiff and defendant, so I'm not sure who brought it, but it might've been the government, who are named as a party.
The court agreed that the suit could have merit, and as an interim measure while the legal proceedings play out, has suspended the CEO and named a temporary director. It also suspended the authority of the owners over their shares (except for one), and assigned a trustee to manage them temporarily. The court did not actually rule on the contents of the suit yet, it only issued interim conservatory measures. We'll likely hear more about how the suit plays out over the next few months.
An interesting matter of contention in the suit is that the CEO/owner want the CLO to be suspended, while the other side asks the court to prohibit firing of the CLO. I presume there has been a conflict in the board, either leading to or caused by the government order.
The court documents are public by the way (in Dutch, obviously): https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/resultaat?zoekterm=nexperi...
> I assume this is an entirely independent Chinese company.
It's worth noting that Nexperia is a spin-off of NXP (Dutch company) which itself is a spin-off of Philips' (Dutch company) semiconductor division.
It's also worth noting that Nexperia's Chinese owners (Wingtech) are at least partially state controlled.
Perhaps also worth noting that ASML is also a spin-off of Philips.
Could be worse. Could be TikTok and threat to national security.
Maybe pressure from the US gov? As a negotiatingtactic vs China - remeber the moves against MotorSich in Ukraine some years back , where the deal was win-win for both but Washington put the kibosh on it and ultimately got destroyed by Russian offensive. Since the speed/urgency and unusual application of the law as you mention , mean extraodinary actions must have quite extraordinary causes. In any case still too many unknowns in the story , hopefully clarity ensues soonest.
Believe it or not, but the dutch government has agency. It's not impossible for US pressure to be a factor, but I think it's more likely the management of the company was planning to move production to china or something like that. That'd (rightly!) spook the government into some quick action, especially given the political climate around Russia seemingly not being content with having their war confined to Ukraine.
Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
The US has immense pressure on the dutch government, given their control over ASML . Its US big tech and semi design studios that determines who will need to buy EUV from ASML. Given ASML is not allowed to do business with China, Russia etc.
Ultimately the Dutch, like for instance the Australians, are a rounding error compared to China and a pawn in a bigger game. At least the Dutch can "hide" behind the EU.
So there will noise but this won't stop China' rise and it won't stop Europe's decline, either.
> Unfortunately we seem to be living in interesting times.
China played a remarkably smart game. We let it happen.
People have been telling us for twenty years that this would happen and nobody listened until it was almost too late.
Either way, it cannot be stopped, China will develop independent technology sector because they can and they have no other choice. They don't trust the West and cases like this make such attitude understandable.
As soon as China tries to compete with the rich monopolies, the "free market" goes out of the window and becomes "free to do as we tell you".
nincompoops... learned a new word today
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.
And of course, the jobs disappeared from Germany.
the jobs didn't disappear (yet). they grew from 13.000 in 2014 before midea took over to 15.000 in 2024. maybe they could have grown more in germany if midea hadn't taken over. who knows.
Did they? As far as I know Kuka is still fully controlled by Midea.
The regulation was created after that
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%.
Negotiation leverage. Had they prevent the purchase in the first place, they won’t have anythings to negotiate now.
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 know if something similar was feared, but I would like to remind people of what happened in 2020 with China and ARM.
You don't get into the China market without losing control.
Also real kicker from 2022:
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...
Related, the announcement of the Dutch government: https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2025/10/12/minister-of...
Nexperia makes quite a line-up of parts. Huge range of pretty low level things, various logic and bus small devices, mountains of transistors. https://www.mouser.com/manufacturer/nexperia/featured-produc...
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.
Would be interested to hear some details on this from someone within Nexperia (or the automotive customers it supplied), if anyone is here on HN
That governmental decision was surely not taken lightly, it's a significant move with high risk of increasing geopolitical tension...
That will not happen. But yes, you are right that this decision was not taken lightly, I've only heard of one other such move in the last 50 years or so.
The Chinese propaganda machine is already making lots of waves about how NL is no longer a democracy and how this dings NL reputation abroad.
The Dutch have put restrictions on Wingtech to not make certain changes (sale or move of assets, intellectual property, company activities, employees) for a year. That should give you enough to chew on I think (and it is public knowledge). Specifically the IP and assets bits are in focus here, more so because the parent company is on a watchlist. Note that they not only kicked out the CEO - which in itself is an earth shaking move for a company this big - they also took control over the shares.
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.
It's ok. It's fine when the EU does it. It's only wrong and against capitalism when others do it. Like protectionism.
I think its fine to have national and strategic interests. China isn't someone that you can just trust, they are exporting to Russia on the sly and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
> and therefore supporting war in Europe because it suits them.
EU countries are still sending more money to Russia for oil than they send Ukraine in aid. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/24/eu-spends-more...
> they are exporting to Russia on the sly
is it really on the sly though?
Why is "against capitalism" == wrong? Maybe it's right because it's against capitalism.
alt link https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3328726/ch...
Thanks, we'll add that to the toptext as well.
This excuse could be used by many countries to seize European companies controlling strategic national resources
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.
This is it pretty much, not sure why it took so long to come to this realization. Was it greed that caused a warp in rational and common sense?
Greed. When China was becoming manufacturing powerhouse, it was incredibly cheap, and Chinese government seemed extremely willing to play ball by making sure there was no government caused slowdowns. This obviously worked until it didn't but even now, it's so expensive to change, corporations are screaming about their quarterly stock price and US being so financialized, US in a real gordian knot.
Just the religious belief that The Free Market will solve everything on its own and there should be no attempt to interfere with it.
I never understood this, I believe very strongly in the free market, but only where there is a free market. Of course you can let the free market run free up to the border of e.g. the US but surely it won't solve international trade since many countries do not have a free market. Unless we agree some international rules such that the boundary of the free market "sandbox" becomes the earths borders.
It's why I also think it is possible to hold a pro-free-market pro-tariff position simultaneously without contradiction. Tariffs could be used to "level set" manipulation from foreign governments and make the incoming goods behave as if they were not manipulated (thus also reducing the incentive to manipulate in the first place).
Not sure this is how tariffs are being used in reality.
And it might even be valid too.
And which firms in China are controlled by European entities?
There are many companies which the Chinese government could target in retaliation. In China foreign companies are usually minority partners in some ventures with some Chinese company.
Let's hope so
Sell your industry to private equity, this is what happens. Someone who values it will take it up. Many such cases.
> extraordinary move to ensure a sufficient supply of its chips remains available in Europe amid rising global trade tensions.
It’s like they beg China to do something with Taiwan.