Arm Takes Action To Regain Control At Its Renegade China Unit (ft.com) 44
Arm has moved to regain control of its renegade China unit and replace its chief executive Allen Wu, as the UK chip designer seeks to clear its path to a successful public listing. From a report: The UK chip designer will put forward two individuals to act as co-chief executives of its China joint venture and has received official sign-off to submit the paperwork, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter. The proposed candidates to take over as co-CEOs are Dr Liu Renchen, a government adviser and vice-dean of the Research Institute of Tsinghua University in Shenzhen and Vision Fund managing partner Eric Chen, who has been leading SoftBank's negotiations with Chinese officials. Arm has been trying to oust Wu for almost two years, afterâhe disregarded a 7 to 1 board vote for his removal and unilaterally took control of the company. "Discussions have been going on for a while and this is the proposed solution," said one person close to Arm China's board. "But submission is not the problem, getting authorities to sign off on it is," the person said. The person noted that previous deals to resolve the stand-off had fallen through at the last minute and cautioned: "We still have to see if Allen will be able to derail it."
Interesting youtube video explaining (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a nice Half As Interesting video explaining a lot of the problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Basically Allen Wu has the magic stamp, and without that stamp it's hard to do anything. There are many remedies, but all of them can be vetoed by the guy with the magic stamp.
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There's a nice Half As Interesting video explaining a lot of the problem. https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Basically Allen Wu has the magic stamp, and without that stamp it's hard to do anything. There are many remedies, but all of them can be vetoed by the guy with the magic stamp.
Didn't watch the video yet, since I am on mobile, but can he veto himself being ousted?
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Didn't watch the video yet, since I am on mobile, but can he veto himself being ousted?
Apparently, yes, and that is part of the problem.
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Didn't watch the video yet, since I am on mobile, but can he veto himself being ousted?
Apparently, yes, and that is part of the problem.
This is where I'd normally insert the crazy face emoji. If the board doesn't have the power to terminate a renegade CEO, then something is seriously f*cked up.
Re:Interesting youtube video explaining (Score:5, Insightful)
If the board doesn't have the power to terminate a renegade CEO
The board of the UK company Arm Ltd. doesn't have the power to oust the CEO of Arm-China because they are two different companies, and Arm Ltd. only owns 49% of Arm-China.
They could wrest control away from Wu with the support of other shareholders, but so far, that hasn't happened. Another problem is that China is not a "rule-of-law" country with judicial independence. So political interference in legal matters is a big problem.
If you launch a joint venture in China, make sure you have influential people on your side and watch your six.
Re:Interesting youtube video explaining (Score:4, Interesting)
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In practice, yes. The company directors cannot even petition the court because unless that petition was stamped with the company *chop*, that petition is not valid.
Shortcomings in the rule of law are a major risk for any company setting up business in China. China ranks 98th out of 130 countries evaluated by the World Justice Project for rule of law, between the Belarus and the Kyrgyz Republic. But most countries who do so aren't focused on long term risk.
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unless that petition was stamped with the company *chop*, that petition is not valid.
The "chop" stamps are one of the stupidest things in Chinese culture. They are carved out of marble and treated like holy relics, yet you can buy them on street corners for 40 RMB ($6) or have one custom-made for 100 RMB. So it is trivial to use them to impersonate another person or company.
America has corporate seals which can be purchased online with no verification. But the difference is that they are ceremonial only and carry no legal weight.
Re:Interesting youtube video explaining (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I don't think the stockholders with party ties have would have any difficulty getting around the chop business. It's just foreigner investors.
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Come on. It's like the title to a car. It represents the ownership of the car but if contested what it really represents is the current state of an international legal dispute which is in flux.
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the government would just throw up its hands and say, "oh well, he has the magical chop now, nothing we can do."
I see that you didn't RTFA. That is what is happening.
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Actually the poster has a point. If PetroChina's chop were stolen it would quickly be returned.
One of the striking features of the Chinese system is routinely selective enforcement of the law. There are many laws in China which are usually ignored -- emission standards for vehicles for example. But if a businessman displeases the party, suddenly that law gets enforced. Selective enforcement is unconstitutional in the US, but it's a very important aspect of party control in China. The idea is to make com
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According to the video, he has possession of the company seal, which is required to make any personnel changes, including firing him. The seal can be replaced, except that requires the original seal to sign off on the replacement. Declaring the seal lost is technically possible, except that Wu can contest it by showing that the seal is not lost but instead in his possession.
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Sounds like a problem a motivated individual with a 5 dollar wrench could fix.
Re: Interesting youtube video explaining (Score:1)
Yeah, the video is entertaining but there are other legal avenues they could take. They just need 1 investor in China to join in a lawsuit. The problem is the CEO is very well connected with the communist party and even if they obtained the stamp itâ(TM)s unlikely China would let ARM fall in the hands of foreigners since ARM is a strategic benefit for creating their own chips.
Fails to explain the truth about Chinese Law. (Score:2)
By Chinese Law, the Stamp rules. Whoever has the Stamp owns the company. Everything else is just fiction. The problem is that they gave the stamp to a person. Doing that technically gives ownership of the company.
Is the stamp allowed to leave the country? Because if so, the only reasonable idea is to have a parent company set up in another country take possession of the Stamp. Then let that country's law affect the Stamp.
Of course, ;D you just have to hope that the Magic Wand used by that country to
First I thought of. Also, China vs the west (Score:2)
That video was the first thing I thought of when I saw the headline. :)
The other side of it is that while Chinese authorities COULD issue a replacement stamp, neglecting to do allows China to steal the company from the West. If a the situation were reversed and a westerner had the stamp you can get the Chinese authorities would replace it within 24 hours.
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The "Magic Stamp" is Allen Wu CCP FUD.
Nobody in the West cares about a stamp, and in China, its only the ruling CCP official that cares about who runs the company.
Wu is in the pocket of Xi XingPing, and a few years ago, ignored a legal firing vote, and hijacked ARM's intellectual property and the ARM China branch. So basically ARM China can manufacture any ARM based chip, and make any deals that is based on ARM's intellectual property. ARM, Inc. can enforce legal actions internationally, but it can't insi
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ARM China may find out intellectual property has a limited lifespan. They can do whatever they like with the intellectual property that's in their hands right now, but as long as it's being created outside of China they may discover there are all kinds of obstacles to getting new designs. Yes, ARM China can decide to fork the existing designs, but if they were capable of keeping up with the designers for ARM UK they wouldn't have needed to deal with them in the first place.
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The point of the legal fiasco was not to be dependent on business with China, because they do not respect international intellectual property laws. China was basically able to steal ARM LLC's intellectual property portfolio because Wu has the backing of Xi Xingping. Of course ARM China is constrained with its ability to prosper in the future, but neither Xi or Wu give a rats ass.
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LIDAR clone the stamp ?
re-3d print a new one
If you do business in China, CCP owns your biz (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:If you do business in China, CCP owns your biz (Score:5, Insightful)
Blinded by greed.
Re:If you do business in China, CCP owns your biz (Score:5, Interesting)
If you do business in China, CCP owns your business. How have people not understood this for the last thirty-forty years?
And if you allow Chinese-made products into your country you are directly supporting the communist dictatorship government of China, and making them stronger so that they can do even more terrible things to their people.
But hey, at least you are able to buy lots of cheap shit. Who cares if a few million people are killed, tortured or commit suicide. It's all worth it, right?
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If you do business in China, CCP owns your business. How have people not understood this for the last thirty-forty years?
And if you allow Chinese-made products into your country you are directly supporting the communist dictatorship government of China, and making them stronger so that they can do even more terrible things to their people. But hey, at least you are able to buy lots of cheap shit. Who cares if a few million people are killed, tortured or commit suicide. It's all worth it, right?
Imagine a MAGA hat on an iPhone. Future so bright, I gotta wear shades.*
* Shades are currently on back-order with no estimated restock date available at this time. Please check back later.
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And I guess you recognize that fact, hence the anonymity.
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If you do business in dollars, the USA owns your business. How has Putin not understood this?
Now, if you could put ownership on a blockchain...
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Because while true, the problem with ARM China is not the CCP. It's actually more fundamental and goes back thousands of years.
Basically, in China, every business has a "signature", a stamp. When you start a business, you create a stamp and register it with the Chinese bureau of businesses. Whenever you need to do any official business, you use the stamp.
That stamp is also used to hire a
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They allow some "profits" to be extracted by the foreign "owner", until they deem it is enough.
They even do this to their own. Look at Jack Ma. CCP basically said "thank you for building us a billion dollar mega company. Now go retire, and don't speak up, or otherwise we will make you retire"
I am wondering how long they will keep Tesla factories under Musk's control...
No article? (Score:2)
There seems to be no link to an article; just the summary.
The summary says "From a report:", but no report is linked (just, later in the summary, a link to an old Slashdot post).
Re:No article? (Score:4, Informative)
There seems to be no link to an article; just the summary.
There is a link to this Financial Times article [ft.com], but it is paywalled.
Here is a non-paywalled article from Bloomberg [bloomberg.com].
Other articles are available with a Google search.
I sure hope ARM (Score:5, Interesting)
Back to EVIL CHINA(tm) posts! (Score:1)
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Japan also stamped (Score:2)
Japan also has stamps. A couple for the company and one for the company's bank account. I kind of imagine the same thing would happen in the Japanese side owned 51% and the 49% side tried to fire them, if the Japanese company owned the IP. Though apparently the Chinese side is further empowered by the whole nationalized IP stealing thing backed all the way to the top, for national security and "what's mine is mine and what's yours is mine", and not caring about being able to export their products. It would
It isn't "renegade", it has been stolen by the CCP (Score:2)
Wow. Every international company needs to pay attention to this. See what doing business in China gets you. Robbed.