Judge hands down prison sentences to three Taiwanese for poaching engineers

• By Tsai Chang-sheng and William Hetherington / Staff reporter, with staff writer

A judge in Hsinchu handed down prison sentences ranging from four to six months to three Taiwanese, which were commuted to fines, for their involvement in the poaching of engineers for China’s Xiaomi Corp (小米).

Beijing Tianmi Technology Co’s Taiwan office technical director Pan Chi-kuei (潘積桂) was sentenced to four months in prison, former Xiaomi Communications chief financial officer Yu Ming-to (延銘鐸) was given five months and Altek Semiconductor acting general manager Hsia Tzu-yu (夏祖禹) was handed a six-month sentence. The sentences can be commuted to fines, with the three paying a combined NT$600,000.

Beijing Tianmi Technology, a subsidiary of Xiaomi Corp, established a number of companies in Taiwan to poach engineers, under the guise of engaging in research and development in Taiwan, court documents said.

Payments were sent to the three men through Beijing Xiaomi Mobile, another subsidiary of Xiaomi Corp, in exchange for recruiting Taiwanese to form a research and development team, it said.

In helping Xiaomi Corp poach Taiwanese talent, the men had endangered national security and contravened stipulations laid out in the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the judge said.

Xiaomi founder Lin Bin (林斌) encouraged Yu to establish a company called Yishing Technology Ltd in Taipei to serve as a front for his activities, court documents showed.

Pan transferred 24 research-and-development personnel from Beijing Tianmi Technology’s Taiwan office to Yishing, documents showed, adding that in 2021, Hsia had encouraged Pan to establish a “research-and-development resource office” under Altek Semiconductor, to which more engineers were transferred.

Aside from engaging in illegal activities that benefited enterprises in China, the men were also unable to fully protect the rights and interests of the trading public, the judge said.