ARM China Seizes IP, Relaunches As an 'Independent' Company (extremetech.com) 146
New submitter TomGreenhaw writes: This should be very concerning for tech companies that operate in the Chinese market. 'It is not clear how much pressure was put on SoftBank to form the merger, but this looks like one of the most blatant examples of IP theft that we've seen. The Chinese arm of a company has gone rogue and refused to obey the ruling of its own board. The head of that company is essentially treating it as a personal fiefdom, and Chinese authorities do not appear to have taken meaningful action to reign in Mr. Wu.'
Concerning, or expected (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't find it concerning at all, it was obvious things like this would happen.
In fact I find it refreshing to have the theft be so blatant, instead of the theft being hidden behind the scenes into some other company that's obviously cloning tech...
It really serves everyone better when there's a clean break like this.
Re:Concerning, or expected (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that's not what has happened here.
ARM China was set up because China was worried about what the US might try to do if a US company, say Nvidia, tried to buy it. The idea was that it would give the Chinese government the opportunity to approve or reject any take-over deal.
So now the worst has happened and Softbank is keen to sell ARM to Nvidia. But there is an extra complication, the CEO of ARM China is an asshat. I don't know how they found him, but they picked the wrong guy. He's an idiot too, because ARM China can't really do much without the support of the parent company. ARM China is really just providing support for ARM products in China, things like Chinese speaking engineers and translating documentation, and all the big customers who make SoCs were getting by just fine before it existed.
They aren't cloning anything, there is nothing to clone. They don't even have access to the latest ARM 9 stuff because their dickhead CEO has been acting up for a while now.
As for why the Chinese authorities haven't taken more action, why would they? If you violate a contract or there is a dispute over the position of CEO is it normal for the US authorities to come and sort it out for you? No, you get your own lawyer, because it's a civil matter.
Foreign subsidiary fun (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Concerning, or expected (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Concerning, or expected (Score:5, Informative)
Up until recently it's felt a lot more subtle. Companies move a plant there and then the Chinese study the machines/fabs/dies and retrofit them to produce the same things locally. Slow IP theft that bled companies slowly. More recently it's been blatant. It should put a chill on companies being willing to take the risk of losing their own business to China.
I personally hope things like this will result in more people and companies buying from non-Chinese companies. The last year has shown us how brittle a supply chain that relies too heavily on China can break.
Liberalizing through engagement died at Tiananmen (Score:5, Insightful)
Up until recently it's felt a lot more subtle.
No, it has not. It has literally, repeatedly, been this sort of seizing manufacturing equipment and IP and cloning a product under a new product name and new corporate identity.
Our press and our business and political leadership are just too timid to mention this except on rare occasions. Too many in the press, business and politics are making a lot of money from China so we ignore it and continue the failed 1970s theory of liberalizing China through engagement. That theory died decades ago at Tiananmen Square in the 1990s.
China's economic plans talk about cloning strategic products like jet engines, CPUs, etc. Offer to supply state airlines with jet engines, create join ventures to manufacture in China, learn and duplicate the manufacturing processes and the core technology, have a new 100% domestic jet engine company emerge ibased on the foreign processes and tech. This is the plan for pretty much anything deemed strategic.
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Do you really think that's what's happening here?
Think it through. ARM China "steals" the IP. It's worthless because any company that licenses it will only be able to sell their products in China. If exported they will be seized at the border as counterfeit. And even in China they will likely find in a few years that a court says their licence is invalid.
ARM China doesn't even have the latest IP, ARM stopped sharing it years ago when their CEO started this nonsense. No ARM9 stuff at all.
The guy has some kin
China internet strategy (Score:5, Insightful)
It appears China is aggressively doubling down on its strategy of nationalizing the technology industry and de-FAANGing it in any way possible. Given the recent Jack Ma saga, it is inconceivable this move happened without the blessing of Chinese authorities. If ARM itself can become a victim of foreign-IP-nationalization-as-national-policy, ANY company can.
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China sees manufacturing as the driver of the economy. They don't want to become another "internet only" economy.
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I don't think that is entirely true anymore. I think Xi recognizes the utility in outsourcing the dirtiest lowest skill industrial activities. Doing so helps address environmental concerns, and actually gives you a lot more monetary flexibility, and helps tamp down class/caste envy at least for a time. He is looking at the 20th century American mercantilistic policy model with benefit of hindsight in terms of what worked and what did not and to what extremes to turn certain dials.
I think Xi very much want
Re:China internet strategy (Score:5, Informative)
Here is the source I was quoting [wsj.com]. This CCP speech is also helpful [georgetown.edu].
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>I think Xi very much wants to send manufacturing out to the rest of third world while increasing domestic consumption and information / knowledge work at home - and the scope/standard of the welfare state along with it.
Why do you think that? China has a population of over 1.4 billion, and only a small proportion of that have living standards comparable to advanced economies. Further industralisation is imperative for them to continue growth so it make no sense to want to off-shore that generally. Only t
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Manufacturing is typically a low wage game, that's certainly why most of our own manufacturing went to China to begin with. If their goal is now to raise incomes (and it seems like it is) keeping around a sector of the economy whose chief benefit is providing low wage work won't help with that.
Re: China internet strategy (Score:2)
There is ample capacity with the rural population and automation to continue industrial growth domestically for the foreseeable future. There is close to zero appetite to off-shore those activities. There is a focus of moving up the value chain, but that doesn't mean off-shoring everything that's not high value. For manufacturers moving away from China , that's another matter, mainly to do with market forces, fear of IP theft and increasingly political considerations.
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China definitely retaliated, and chose the targets politically.
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They might not be able to export devices containing this IP, though.
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Good point.
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No it isn't. You don't know the specifics. The guy who runs ARM China has the corporate stamp. This is basically what is used to sign off all transactions in a company. Any other company operating in other Asian countries like Japan would have similar issues if someone who had the stamp ran amok.
As for Jack Ma, if someone in the West gave credit like he's doing in China he would get the regulators on top of him as well.
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I can't wait to watch all those folks holding BABA shares find out what exactly the 'own'
That will be fun to watch. I am being sure to keep a sack of pooping corn around for the occasion.
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Pooping corn? Eeewww. I do that after a good night's dinner sometimes.
No, I usually eat popping corn, or "popcorn" as we call it in the USA....
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In Japan they would go straight to jail, and would be bowing low and apologizing within a few days, begging the board to forgive their intransigence.
Re:China internet strategy (Score:5, Interesting)
Worked for a company a few years back, and one of the only smart things I can say they did was take the threat of China stealing their IP very seriously. If you traveled to China you were required to get a special loaner laptop that was intentionally limited, they spent a lot of time and money making sure that they could limit access to things in SAP to specific regions -- the China office had a habit of asking very strange and specific questions about a variety of things -- and they would only sell products that were a couple generations behind what they were selling everywhere else in China because there was a general assumption they would try to reverse engineer it and then build their own competing product.
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A company I used to work for had everything made in China. Never had any issues with IP theft, even though it wouldn't have been at all difficult to clone our products. In fact we ended up partnering with a Chinese company who resold the product in China, and I had to work on making the UI capable of displaying Chinese text. By the time I left they had been selling our product for 4 years and were expanding into Taiwan. No sign of clones on the market.
Conversely the US government tried to rip us off. Once t
Block all goods from Alphatecture worldwide (Score:3)
as punishment for this theft. Alphatecture will still have a large market inside China. I assume that this move has the approval of the CCP (most things in China need this) and so the CCP needs to be told/taught that it cannot just do what it wants and steal from the rest of the world.
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How did you come up with USA from his post? The subject implies that this would be a world-wide effort, and makes no mention which country, if any, would lead such an effort.
Re:Block all goods from Alphatecture worldwide (Score:5, Interesting)
HAhaha, who is going to listen to the loser USA about blocking anything?
Well, if recent history is anything to go by: most of the world.
Look at what happened to Huawei in the last two years. Huawei saw its chip supplies dry up practically overnight when the US banned American companies, companies using American technology, and third-party companies selling those chips from supplying Huawei. Samsung, TSMC, Qualcomm, and more all stopped supplying them. Huawei had to design its next set of phones to use underpowered domestic chips from companies you've likely never heard of, so I'd say you're holding the losing end of that argument. The US clearly still has and has demonstrated the ability to exert exactly the sort of influence you suggest they don't possess.
That said, I do agree with the notion that the US' ability to exert influence in such matters has begun to wane, both for better and worse. It's silly to suggest the influence is gone already, as you're doing here, but it's fair to acknowledge that it isn't what it once was and that the trend is clearly in a downward direction.
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Wouldn't it be the EU doing the blocking, since Arm is still a European company?
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The proper response to "whataboutism" is to show why neither party should be engaging in certain behaviors.
That said, it is essentially a moral argument: outrage at blatant hypocrisy by the completely unprincipled. You know the saying about Washington, DC: "They don't have any principles, only "interests".
Unfortunately, moral argument has zero effect on the immoral or unprincipled. Bullets, however, can be very effective when judiciously applied.
What's new (Score:2)
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Your are either a Chinese troll or incredibly naive.
The CCP does nothing to spead good will. They do things to extend the power and influence of the CCP.
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goodwill and influence are the same thing with different connotations.
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Coercive loans do not generate goodwill. Border disputes do not generate goodwill.
Vietnam is increasing military cooperation with the US. Within a few years, Vietnam will be a US ally.
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As opposed to USA bombing the shit out of places for power, resources, defense contractor profits. Including Vietnam.
Chinese investment in Vietnam surging past few years, and they just made 100 billion bilaterial agreement, dwarfing US trade with them.
We'll never compete with China in east and south asia.
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Wait, wait, you thought the US extracted resources from Vietnam by bombing the shit out of it? Are you fucking nuts? You know you can research that, to find out if it happened... right? No. You didn't know you can think for yourself, or research claims. You're that credulous. Even of an armchair geographer who shoots 0%, like Chomsky.
Re:What's new (Score:5, Informative)
from your url
Overall, China’s foreign assistance during the past several years has been driven primarily by Beijing’s desire to secure and transport natural resources and secondarily for diplomatic reasons. According to the NYU Wagner School study, during the 2002-2007 period, Africa received the greatest amount of loans and development assistance, followed by Latin America and Southeast Asia. The study suggests that China’s foreign aid activities in Africa and Latin America serve the PRC’s immediate economic interests, while those in Southeast Asia relate to longer term diplomatic or strategic objectives. In Africa and Southeast Asia, Chinese infrastructure and public works projects constitute the most common form of aid, while in Latin America, where some countries are more developed, PRC-sponsored natural resource development activities are more prominent.
After you are done reading it, go back to Beijing.
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China is the rising power in the world, why would it have to take orders from anyone? It's been building factories, roads, bridges, rails in many countries to spread goodwill. What does USA do? Bomb the shit out of goat herders for a couple decades and then slink off totally pussy whipped? USA can throw all the hissy fits it wants, it's now known to be a farce that is not to be taken seriously.
Right, Comrade!
"Rein in", not "reign in" (Score:4, Informative)
It's "rein [merriam-webster.com] in", not "reign in"
The correct phrase for bringing something under control is rein in, not reign in. Rein in is an allusion to pulling on the reins of a horse in order to exercise more control.
Apparently ousted CEO still holds the "seal" (Score:5, Informative)
The board ousted the CEO, voting 7 against 1. The CEO refused to accept the vote. Refused to vacate the office. Refused to hand over the "seal". The "seal" is really what authorizes transactions and banks obey the seal, not anything else. He created a security organization, with loyalty to him, not the board. Sued the board about the ouster. And represented the company as the CEO. Essentially he sued himself, he was both the plaintiff and the defendant and paid the legal bills for both sides.
If your head is spinning now, its just getting started. He created another company, without any English name and a cartouche of Chinse characters is all that is visible to outsiders. Signed over all IP to that company. Took over as the CEO of that company and made the old company subsidiary of the new company, signing the contract for both parties
Western companies are slowly realizing the precedents and Chinese law are very different from European, American law.
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Not just Chinese, also similar law in Japan and Hong Kong AFAIK.
You don't sign things. You use the stamp.
Re: Apparently ousted CEO still holds the "seal" (Score:3)
Re:Apparently ousted CEO still holds the "seal" (Score:4, Informative)
Not just Chinese, also similar law in Japan and Hong Kong AFAIK.
You don't sign things. You use the stamp.
Where are... "people" getting the idea that Japan lacks a rules-based legal environment around their business community? That's just... nuts.
You pull something like that in Japan, you're looking at decades in prison for fraud.
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Depends. It could be an entirely civil matter. IP disputes usually are.
Look at Facebook and the claim those twins had. Or the way some of the early shareholders got screwed by the way the stock was split. Nobody went to jail, it was all just lawsuits.
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Stealing the company's seal is not a civil matter in any country with basic rule of law.
He was fired, and refused to give up the seal. That's criminal theft and, use of the seal after being fired by the board is fraud.
The stuff with the IP is based on fradulent contracts. The IP itself, who cares? The civil issue would be that the transfer didn't actually happen, because the contract wasn't signed by the party authorized by the board.
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Ghosan.
Ghosan is an international fugitive escaping Japanese law, who use his own contracted muscle to escape the arm of Japanese law.
Moreover, his case is an outlier in a nation with one of the strongest legal frameworls in the developed world.
Your reply doesn't make any sense. Sorry.
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His case isn't an outlier. It's a known fact that Japan has 99% conviction rates.
It's also well known and has been written up many times about Japan's jail conditions, designed to break the arrested into either pleading or confessing.
That's irrelevant to topic at hand. You are describing problems with prosecution, which we also do. That's distinct from the original topic of corporate laws being fucked up in Japan the way they are in China.
Stay on the line or GTFO with the constant moving of goalposts.
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Not just Chinese, also similar law in Japan and Hong Kong AFAIK. You don't sign things. You use the stamp.
"AFAIK"? The fact that Japan and HK use seals does not make their laws equal to China. IP law is sacrosanct in Japan, and I dare anyone find anything like this is Japanese legal history post WWII.
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Ghosn's escape wasn't facilitated by corrupt officials. They snuck him out of the country in a crate. Some involved in his escape have been charged, tried and sentenced. [wikipedia.org]
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the court systems were corrupt as fuck with 99% conviction rates
Sounds like the police and prosecutors do their homework before bringing charges.
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Sure they are. Look at what happened at Ghosan.
Oh yes, a foreign CEO hiring his own foreign goons to get him to escape. Sure yeah, that on itself makes Japanese corporate and IP laws the same as China's.
We can go further with this logic and pretend that US laws are as bad as China by saying "look at the Lehmans or WorldCom!"
To paraphrase Asimov, your attempt at equating a wrong (Ghosan, which is an outlier case in Japan) with a greater wrong (systematic IP theft in China) is not even wrong. It is wronger than wrong.
Hit the pause button for a momen
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That is because Western management is incompetent (or egotistical) enough to believe the the next guy in line will be the bagholder. Basically, they are gambling, writ large.
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I think that "didn't realize the law was different" is a pretty transparent excuse. Companies didn't expose themselves to the risks China represents because management was too stupid to see the downsides. They did it because management *doesn't care about bad things that are going to happen several years in the future*.
Management doesn't care because investors and stockholders don't care very much either. The investors may not feel that way about *every* stock in their portfolio; there may be stocks the
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The problem is this think extends into the political and military space too.
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Yeah. Don't let that revolving door hit you in the ass.
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The law in China is the exact same law as is in Russia. Exactly the same as any other dictator/ruling class ran country.
The law is whatever the leader(s) say the law is today. Tomorrow the law my be different and you may go to jail for what was perfectly fine yesterday. Do not anger the rulers. And hope they follow whatever agreement your company has with the current and next leaders.
I worked long ago at an oil company that made sure the $$ being paid for the oil leaving some country ran similar to thi
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Sounds a lot like British democracy.
Re: Apparently ousted CEO still holds the "seal" (Score:2)
Yes, comrade. Companies with subsidiaries in the UK consider arbitrary nationalisation of their assets a credible risk.
There aren't in the alternatives (Score:2)
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Many years ago, before the advent of the internet for public use, there was a supercar company called "Vector Aeromotive" and the CEO was one Jerry Wiegert, who got ousted by the board of directors as his company was failing.
Deciding this was against his wishes, he took the board of directors hostage and began a several day stand off with the police. A great fun read at the time about an unhinged man and his dreams slipping from him.
This story kinda reminded me of Jerry Wiegert.
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...
Circular reasoning
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You can write any Chinese character in Latin script, and it's not hard to find someone outside China who can read Chinese.
If that was his plan, to confuse people on the assumption that they couldn't read Chinese, well it's a terrible plan. Sounds more like something a journalist who doesn't know how to use Google Translate made up (not the transfer of ownership, just the motivation behind a Chinese guy giving a company a Chinese name).
Buying a Chinese company means leasing it for 5yrs (Score:2, Interesting)
https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]
"Arm China, which generates revenue by licensing chip architecture to Chinese companies, was established in 2018 when SoftBank sold a 51% stake in Arm Ltd’s Chinese subsidiary, Arm Technology (China) Co Ltd, to a group of Chinese investors. SoftBank had acquired Arm in 2016 for $32 billion."
The British government let it happen because they were fixated on "trans bullshit" and "statues" according to former advisor Dominic Cummings
htps://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/14
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Nah. That's BS. Arm China only licenses customers in China, not the rest of the world. Plus the technology they license is produced outside China, and ARM continues hardware development. So the license can be cut at the source and newer designed products won't be available to ARM China.
When the heck are we going to learn China can't be (Score:2, Informative)
I'm shocked, shocked to hear that a dictatorship founded on the theft of IP from the rest the world has stolen IP of a major corporation. Somehow I don't think customs officials will be impounding any Chinese manufactured product with arm chips in it because of patent violations.
when the hell are we going to learn and stop buying from China.
You're dealing with Patrick Bateman here. (Score:2)
Wall Street all thinks they will be rich/richer because of of the CCP/China - fuck, even 97 y/o billionaire traitor Charlie Munger recently waxed poetic about how much he wishes our financial system was the same as theirs. [cnn.com] He's someone who has publicly stated that he won't invest in tobacco companies because they're bad for people. Fucking hypocritical piece of shit. They're basically all like this - do what I say, not what I do.
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I can make it even better for you.
Just remember, these are the people who own and operate the US Congress, for their benefit. NOW who says we can't afford publicly-funded elections ??
The capatilist will sell you the rope used to hang (Score:4, Insightful)
All countries have done this (Score:4, Interesting)
Before I begin, I'll just state that I'm not arguing it makes it correct/right, just that it's a natural progression.
When the US was just starting out, we stole IP and violated copyrights of other nations. One of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence (want to say Jefferson) stole some highly valuable seeds from Italy when he was the US ambassador. It doesn't make it right, it just is a pretty common part of the evolutionary process a lot of countries go through. When they're trying to establish themselves, they lie, cheat, and steal to make it happen. Then eventually they start producing their own stuff, realize that if they keep stealing everyone else's stuff no one is going to respect their rules about not stealing their stuff, so suddenly they decide it's a good idea to start observing international laws. China hasn't quite gotten to that point yet.
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Of course, just like the Taliban has "seized" Indian assets in Afghanistan. And that's going to be a strong incentive for China, Pakistan, and Russia to invest in the country so they can help them get past that necessary phase in their development.
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All countries have done this
"Mom, why am I being punished for something that Billy got away with?"
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China has the world's largest PPP GDP, yo. This isn't the case of some impoverished, fledgling country doing this.
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Thomas Jefferson bought and took home the rice (Score:2)
It is indeed Jefferson you're thinking of. He bought some seed rice in Italy and took it home. Italian law was that the seed wasn't supposed to leave the country.
He spent quite a bit of time and effort trying to find the best rice to grow in the US.
An intellectual puzzle about that (Score:2)
It occurs to me, that brings up an interesting question if you look at it abstractly. Not as a moral or practical matter, but just as a logic puzzle.
Italian law said you can't take it out of Italy.
For as long as Jefferson was in Italy, and therefore subject to the law of Italy, he followed the law. He didn't take the rice out of Italy while he was in Italy.
Once Jefferson *left* Italy, he was no longer subject to the law of Italy.
Did Jefferson break the law?
Hmmm
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He clearly broke the law. The fact that the country whose law he broke was unable to arrest and prosecute him is irrelevant. Also irrelevant, but maybe worth pointing out, is that it wasn't Italian law. This is long before Garibaldi: what is now modern Italy was at the time a collection of a dozen independent states.
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So you are breaking the law right now if you don't have a proper Muslim beard?
Re:All countries have done this (Score:5, Insightful)
The Americas also have a 5000 year long glorious history. We just ignore that parts that aren't European.
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The Americas also have a 5000 year long glorious history. We just ignore that parts that aren't European.
What is now Western North America was inhabited for at least 10,000 years before white people showed up here, probably closer to 12,000.
China has gone rogue (Score:3)
I mean, when the Chinese government is content to kidnap and hold hostage foreign nationals in order to apply geopolitical pressure, it's hardly surprising they're willing to ignore IP rules.
All the Western companies who see nothing but opportunity in the Chinese market had better have a long hard think about entering it...
Not like they didn't have a choice! (Score:2)
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Come on, it's not like their management team didn't have a choice, they just decided to not have heads cut off so they went with what the communist China government told them they would do.
Yeah, pretty much. We may think it's all on the management team going rogue. It's more like someone has a gun pointed at their family members and threatening their lives if they don't go along with what was whispered very softly into their ears.
Gifts of intellectual property (Score:2)
This ARM situation is akin to the classic cases covered by the folks at China Law Blog, for example in this post where they talk about companies generously "giving" IP to Chinese entities: Giving Your IP to China Out of Love [harrisbricken.com].
Generally, that blog is really great in discussing business dealings between western and Chinese companies. So good, I'm willing to bet it is blocked by the great firewall.
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Told you so? (Score:2)
Or is this a bit too much anti-chinese?
Worth keeping in mind (Score:4, Insightful)
In the early 20th century, this is how the US developed its industries. It ignored European patents and copyrights. In no way does this justify China doing so, but if the US wishes to be a credible source of wisdom regarding intellectual property, perhaps it wouldn't mind paying any outstanding debts and obligations it may have incurred, whether or not those debts and obligations were valid under US law at the time. After all, the theft of knowledge by Chinese companies is likely being carried out under Chinese law. Certainly, the Chinese government isn't prosecuting anyone any more than the US government did.
The US also might want to revisit the issue of monopoly abuse. Microsoft is in violation of existing agreements to unbundle the browser. It carried out an exercise of bribery and corruption against ISO in order to get its document format certified. It is, to be blunt, the same old Microsoft it always was. It hasn't changed. It should be broken up, as per the 1995 judgement against it. Google has likewise overstepped the mark on the evil stakes and is unquestionably abusing its monopoly in order to secure monopolies in other fields. Facebook has done similarly. Cable companies have (illegal under US law, but rarely ever prosecuted) anti-compete agreements and are guilty of corruption via contaminating the FCC with their corporate sock puppets.
Let the US show China how this is done. How they can be competitive cleanly, honestly, with integrity and under the law of the land and not the law of the jungle. Because as long as they don't, China is going to continue using the US as a role model for how to get ahead. They're going to continue "winning" by doing the same thing the US has given the go-ahead for - knifing the baby of rival companies on the principle that There Can Be Only One.
No? Won't fight fair? Then why should China? Why should Europe? Why should anyone follow the rules if America does not?
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but if the US wishes to be a credible source of wisdom regarding intellectual property, perhaps it wouldn't mind paying any outstanding debts and obligations it may have incurred
Yo, about those steam locomotive patents...
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Why should anyone follow the rules if America does not?
Some people shoplift and get away with it. Why should anyone pay for anything at the store?
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Not a meaningful comparison. Closer to a straw man, only without half of the straw. Now, if you'd said "the store detective, the CEO and the clerks were filling their store with good stolen from the competition and they now want to launch a police force to ensure that only they can do this", that would be a fair comparison.
And the odds are pretty decent that any such proposal would result in a visit from the nice, friendly DoJ. Or some guys with violin cases, depending on who had been robbed.
You wouldn't se
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Not a meaningful comparison.
Uhh, ok, let me remove some of the details so that it becomes more meaningful. Subtractive addition, how post modern of me:
Why should anyone follow any rules at all when some people get away with breaking the rules?
Communist take over state critical businesses (Score:1)
It will get more blatant (Score:2)
Submitter doesn't seem to have read original.. (Score:2)
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The article actually summarized that correctly. It's an archaic law and anyone that sets up a joint-venture in China should be made aware of it.
Mädchenfänger (Score:2)
So goes the foibles of allowing the market set foreign policy.
Time for companies to ignore Chinese rules then (Score:2)
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Good (Score:5, Insightful)
ARM China is an autonomous company and can do whatever they want.
It's an autonomous company much like the "Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region" is autonomous.
If you RTFA https://www.extremetech.com/co... [extremetech.com] it says China has some archaic laws:
" Investors and ARM agreed to oust Wu for this behavior in a board vote, 7-1, but Wu still possessed the seal of the company, which makes him its legal representative as far as Chinese law is concerned."
Imagine that, possessing a company seal (stamp) gives you full control of the company even if the shareholders and directors voted to revoke your position.
If ARM/Softbank wasn't after some quick money when they did the merger, this wouldn't be a issue. Hard lesson to learn, but maybe other corporations will take this as a warning (I doubt it)
You say that like Softbank seeking a return on its investment is a bad thing? What else would you think a shareholder is after when selling off an asset like ARM? Their mistake was 'investing' in China in the first place.
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And looking at Slashdot, compared to the early 2000s, it seems those children already came to think they dominate because we barely complain anymore
This is a much different web site than it was in the Napster days. The phrase "IP theft" is taken seriously in this story...
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"Benefit greatly" would be a more accurate phrase, back then as now. Otherwise why do it in the first place if there was nothing to be gained?