Chinese Court Freezes $318 Million of Dutch Chipmaker Nexperia's Assets in China

A court in southern China has frozen assets belonging to Dutch chipmaker Nexperia B.V. and its equipment affiliate ITEC B.V., adding fresh pressure to a control battle that has already disrupted the global automotive chip supply. Wingtech Technology, the Shanghai-listed group that owns Nexperia, disclosed the ruling in a filing to the Shanghai Stock Exchange on 1 September 2026, saying it had received the civil ruling from the Dongguan Intermediate People's Court in Guangdong province on 28 August. The measures cover up to 2.14 billion yuan, roughly 318 million dollars, and took effect between 20 and 25 August 2026.

The freeze targets shareholdings rather than cash or inventory. It covers the full stakes Nexperia B.V. holds in Nexperia Semiconductor (China), Nexperia Semiconductor (Wuxi) and Nexperia Semiconductor (Shanghai), along with a 99 percent holding in Nexperia Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai). A separate order covers the stake ITEC B.V. holds in its Wuxi equipment subsidiary. The measures run until August 2029, which means no sale, transfer or restructuring of those Chinese entities can be completed for three years unless the Dongguan court lifts the order first.

The freeze is a preservation step in a damages claim that Wingtech and one of its subsidiaries filed in May 2026 against Nexperia, its holding company, ITEC and three executives. The claim seeks 8 billion yuan, close to 1.19 billion dollars, and argues that the defendants applied or helped apply discriminatory restrictions imposed by the Dutch side. Wingtech is relying on China's anti-foreign sanctions law, adopted in 2021 to give Chinese companies a domestic legal route against foreign measures. The case has not been heard on its merits and no trial date has been made public. Nexperia said the measures relate only to entities in China that have been operating outside its governance structures and do not affect day-to-day operations, management or business continuity.

The dispute goes back to 30 September 2025, when the Dutch government invoked a Cold War era goods availability law to take control of Nexperia, citing the risk that technology, funds and production capacity would be moved to China. The Amsterdam Enterprise Chamber suspended Wingtech founder Zhang Xuezheng as chief executive the following day and placed almost all Nexperia shares under an independent administrator. Beijing retaliated in October 2025 by blocking exports of finished chips packaged at the Dongguan plant, which handles the bulk of Nexperia's assembly and test volume. Because Nexperia supplies roughly 40 percent of the market for automotive transistors and diodes, carmakers ran short within weeks and several of them, including Honda, halted or slowed production lines.

The escalation eased in November 2025, when China granted export exemptions for civilian use shipments after the meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Busan and the Dutch government suspended its intervention order. Those exemptions are set to run until 27 November 2026, so the arrangement that keeps Chinese-packaged chips flowing to European and Japanese customers now depends on a deadline that is less than three months away.

The commercial separation, on the other hand, never reversed. Nexperia's Nijmegen headquarters stopped shipping wafers to Dongguan in late October 2025 after accusing the Chinese unit of refusing payment for delivered material and opening unauthorised bank accounts, and the Chinese operations responded by declaring themselves independent of European management and qualifying domestic wafer sources. By April 2026 the Dongguan packaging plant was running at roughly 60 to 70 percent of its earlier capacity using stockpiles, customer supplied wafers and local vendors. In recent weeks Nexperia China has moved its products onto 12-inch wafers from a Chinese partner, replacing the 6-inch and 8-inch lines it previously relied on and bringing it close to a fully domestic supply base.

The European side has been rebuilding in parallel. Nexperia B.V. has expanded assembly and test capacity in Malaysia and the Philippines with the support of a 60 million dollar loan from Invest International, aiming to move the large majority of its back-end volume out of China, and its second quarter revenue rose more than 18 percent as those workaround routes stabilised. On the legal side, the Enterprise Chamber ordered a formal investigation into Nexperia's governance in February 2026 and kept the interim measures in place, while Wingtech has opened international arbitration against the Dutch state under the China-Netherlands investment treaty and values its claim at around 8 billion dollars.

For Wingtech, the frozen amount is large relative to what is left of the business. The group reported 1.51 billion yuan in first half 2026 revenue, down more than 90 percent year on year, along with a net loss of 406 million yuan. Its shares carry the Shanghai exchange delisting risk marker after auditor RSM was unable to verify 57 percent of the group's assets, most of them held inside Nexperia entities that Wingtech cannot access.

For buyers, the practical effect of the ruling is not an immediate shortage but a longer lock-in of the split. Any negotiated settlement that involves dividing Nexperia's Chinese plants between the two camps now has to clear a Chinese court before it can be executed, which pushes a clean resolution well beyond 2026. Two parallel product streams are emerging from what used to be a single company, one built on European wafers and Malaysian packaging, the other on Chinese wafers and Dongguan packaging, with separate qualification records behind parts that can carry the same part numbers..