Chinese court freezes $318 million in Nexperia assets as Wingtech presses to regain control — Dutch chipmaker says seizures won’t affect day-to-day operations

A court in Dongguan, China, has frozen 2.14 billion yuan (roughly $318 million) in assets held by Dutch chipmaker Nexperia and its equipment arm, ITEC, according to a filing that Chinese parent company Wingtech Technology submitted to the Shanghai Stock Exchange today. The order covers Nexperia’s equity in five Chinese subsidiaries and runs until August 2029, handing Wingtech fresh leverage in its year-long fight to regain control of Nexperia that Dutch authorities stripped from it in 2025.

The Dongguan Intermediate People’s Court civil ruling, which Wingtech said it received on August 28, freezes Nexperia B.V.’s 100% stakes in Nexperia Semiconductor (China), Nexperia Semiconductor (Wuxi), and Nexperia Semiconductor (Shanghai), plus its 99% holding in Nexperia Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai). A fifth order covers ITEC B.V.’s full stake in its equipment subsidiary, ITEC Technology (Wuxi). The underlying case, an 8 billion yuan (roughly $1.19 billion) damages claim that Wingtech filed in May against Nexperia, its holding company, ITEC, and three executives, hasn’t gone to trial.

Those five entities are the same Chinese operations that stopped following instructions from Nexperia’s Nijmegen headquarters in October last year, when Nexperia accused them of refusing payment for delivered wafers and opening unauthorized bank accounts. Nexperia says it has no control over those businesses today, and the court order now bars any sale, transfer, or restructuring of their equity for three years. Any settlement of the wider ownership dispute that involves carving up Nexperia’s China assets can’t close before August 2029 unless the Dongguan court first suspends the asset freeze.

In that May complaint, Wingtech named chief legal officer Ruben Lichtenberg, chief operating officer Achim Kempe, and Stefan Tilger, the CFO who has led Nexperia as interim chief executive since a Dutch court suspended founder Zhang Xuezheng last October. It alleges that the trio implemented or helped enforce discriminatory restrictive measures imposed by the Netherlands, whose government briefly seized control of Nexperia before suspending its intervention last November.

The total value of the frozen assets exceeds Wingtech’s entire first-half revenue, with the company reporting 1.51 billion yuan in H1 2026 sales, down more than 90% year-over-year, alongside a 406 million yuan net loss. Its shares trade under Shanghai’s *ST delisting-risk designation after auditor RSM couldn’t verify 57% of its assets, most of which are inside Nexperia entities that Wingtech can’t access. Nexperia China, meanwhile, has been qualifying domestic wafer suppliers and producing chips on 12-inch wafers.

In a statement to Bloomberg, Nexperia said that the measures relate “solely to entities in China that have been operating outside Nexperia BV’s governance structures” and don’t affect its day-to-day operations, management, or business continuity.