South Korean prosecutors charged seven people over an alleged attempt to leak Samsung technology to China, the Seoul Eastern District Prosecution Office said on November 11. The Samsung technology leak case centers on a supplier to Samsung Display and on factory automation software owned by Samsung SDS. Four employees of the supplier, including an executive director, were indicted without detention for illegally obtaining material holding process technology for eighth-generation liquid crystal display panels. Three others, including a former chief executive of the supplier and the company itself, were indicted over the use of the Samsung SDS source code without authorization or handing it to a Chinese firm. The charges were brought under the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Unfair Competition Prevention Act.
Samsung technology leak: the LCD files
Prosecutors said the four employees compressed log files stored on Samsung Display production equipment on three occasions between September and December 2020 and hid them in places where they would not be erased. The log files held process conditions needed to produce LCD panels, including temperature, pressure and gas flow rates. That information qualifies as core national technology and a trade secret tied to the making of eighth-generation LCD panels. The attempt failed because it was detected during an on-site inspection. The supplier, identified only as Company A, develops, installs and maintains factory automation solutions used by display and semiconductor makers. The Samsung technology leak was stopped before the files left the country, according to the prosecution office.
Samsung technology leak: the software charges
The other three defendants face charges tied to the source code of a Samsung SDS factory automation program. Prosecutors said they used the code without authorization or handed it to a Chinese firm. Company A sold the program’s copyright and related assets to Samsung SDS for 7.4 billion won in November 2011, but kept working with the software as part of its factory automation business. Through March this year, the company carried out 33 factory automation projects worth about 32.1 billion won for overseas companies, including Chinese display makers. The Samsung technology leak charges cover both the LCD process files and the software, and they name the company itself as a defendant alongside its former chief executive.
South Korea’s wider crackdown on leaks
South Korea treats certain manufacturing know-how as national core technology, and the law bars taking it abroad without approval. The Samsung technology leak case joins a series of recent prosecutions. In April 2026, a former Samsung researcher was sentenced to seven years in prison for leaking DRAM process technology to ChangXin Memory Technologies, a Chinese memory maker. In a separate case, ten former Samsung employees were charged over DRAM technology passed to the same company. Prosecutors said the leaked material helped the Chinese firm mass-produce ten-nanometer-class memory by 2023. Eight technology leak cases were opened in the first half of 2025, and five involved China as the recipient.
A case that took years to reach court
The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency referred the case to prosecutors in stages between July and November 2023. Prosecutors then brought it to trial after about three years of supplementary investigation. The case was handled by the No. 1 Serious Crime Prosecution Division of the Seoul Eastern District Prosecution Office, led by senior prosecutor Lee Han-ul. South Korea has tightened enforcement under its industrial technology laws in recent years as it tries to stop sensitive manufacturing know-how from reaching rivals abroad. The Samsung technology leak case is the latest in a run of prosecutions over technology passed to Chinese firms, and the court will now decide whether the seven defendants broke the law.
The four employees were indicted without detention, which means they were charged but not held in custody while the case proceeds. The Samsung technology leak charges will now be heard by a court in Seoul, which will decide whether the employees broke the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Unfair Competition Prevention Act. Prosecutors have not named the Chinese firm that received the Samsung SDS source code, and they have not said how much the leaked material was worth. The Samsung technology leak case will test how South Korea’s courts weigh process data and software code that the state classes as national core technology.