Lawyers for two giant semiconductor companies faced off calmly in closing arguments in a trade secrets and breach-of-settlement trial Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court, but the bitterness of a years-long international grudge match between Taiwan’s TSMC and China’s SMIC was hard to miss.
Keker & Van Nest‘s Jeffrey Chanin, who represents TSMC, compared SMIC to a thief whose “strategy has been to play a game of catch me if you can and play dumb when caught.” Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati‘s David Steuer told the jury that TSMC’s lawsuit was nothing more than “a mean-spirited attempt to destroy a competitor.”
