Ex-Samsung Display researcher gets 6 years in jail in South Korea, leaked OLED secrets to China

A former Samsung Display engineer is now facing 6 years in prison for leaking 340 billion won (around $24.5 million USD or so) worth of OLED technology to China.

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The South Korean lower court found the former senior engineer from Samsung Display guilty of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act. The researcher had been on trial but was allowed out on bail, pending the expiration of their arrest in March 2024, and was recently taken into custody and sentenced on Thursday.

Back in October 2023, the former Samsung Display researcher was indicted on charges of illegally obtaining optical systems for excimer laser annealing (ELA) technology used in the production of Samsung's OLED displays a well as technology used for OCR injects -- which are used to attach outer cover glass on OLED panels -- to sell to Chinese companies between 2018 and 2020.

The former Samsung Display engineer had worked as an OLED expert for over 10 years, after leaving the South Korean giant, he founded a display company in Korea and another in China. The former engineer had been smuggling Samsung OLED display technology to their domestic firm, attempting to sell or provide the OLED tech to Chinese companies through their business in China.

Former subordinates, juniors, friends, and more of the accused were persuaded to join him in the crime, providing trade secrets to the domestic company, where the OLED technology would be duplicated. 5 people who worked with the accused were indicted in August 2020, where of the 5, 3 of them were Samsung Display employees that were sentenced for between 1-2 years, while two friends were given suspended sentences.

Judge Ha Sang-je said of his ruling: "The accused party has wrongly used technology that the company has invested large amounts of money over long periods of time to develop, which is highly condemnable. Strict punishment is required to protect the country's advanced technology. There have been no circumstances relayed that have been reasonable enough to take into consideration to suspend the accused party's sentence".

The prosecution said in a statement following the sentencing: "The advanced technology that had been accumulated by the victim company by investing large sums of investment over a long period of time was wrongly used for personal matters, making this criminal case highly condemnable; furthermore, it has contributed to a great loss for the nation, which is why the accused has been sentenced to a heavy punishment. Prosecution will continue to strictly deal with the criminal act of leaking industrial technology that threatens companies' livelihoods and the nation's economy".