United Microelectronics Corporation

On November 1, 2018, UMC was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice on charges of conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets and economic espionage. The charges issued were in relation to a conspiracy by UMC to steal trade secrets from its competitor in the electronic industry Micron Technology, Inc. by hiring former employees of Micron who then provided the stolen trade secrets to UMC. The trade secrets were then used in relation to a DRAM project UMC had entered with Fujian Jianhua Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd. in May 2016, in which technology developed by UMC would be owned jointly by both parties.

On this news, the Company’s share price fell $0.19 per share or over 10% over two days of trading to close at $1.71 on November 5, 2018, thereby injuring investors.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Company’s business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that:  (1) UMC conspired with Fujian to steal trade secrets from Micron relating to its research and development of Dynamic Random-Access Memory ("DRAM"); (2) UMC hired former Micron employees for the purpose of stealing such information from Micron; (3) the foregoing conduct placed UMC and certain of its employees at an increased risk of criminal and regulatory investigation by the U.S. government; and (4) as a result, UMC’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.