Chinese memory chip maker YMTC files lawsuit in US court, accusing website publisher of libel

China’s top flash memory chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp (YMTC) has filed a lawsuit against a Danish consulting firm and its senior executive – the publisher of China Tech Threat – for libel as Western narratives about potential national security threats from Chinese tech companies proliferate.

Wuhan-Based YMTC sued Copenhagen-based Strand Consult and its executive vice-president Roslyn Layton in the Northern District Court of California in early June for publishing several false reports, which damaged its market reputation and business relations, according to a court document seen by the Post.

YMTC said in the document that China Tech Threat (CCT) began publishing “outlandish and demonstrably false statements” about the company and its products starting in September 2020. In a 2022 report titled How Apple’s partnership with Chinese military chip maker YMTC threatens American National Security, co-authored by Layton, YMTC was called a “Chinese semiconductor maker with known ties to the Chinese military”, an accusation that YMTC has vehemently denied.

The CCT report also described YMTC’s memory chips as being “equipped with spyware [that] could funnel collected data back to Beijing” and “exfiltrate data”, thereby “compromising iPhone users’ security and privacy”, which YMTC called “pure fiction” because memory devices do not process such functions.

“The falsehoods through China Tech Threat have caused irreversible harm to YMTC’s reputation and business relationships,” the chip maker said in the document.

“YMTC advocates for healthy competition to drive innovation and strongly stands against these kinds of anti-competitive practices. We look forward to setting the record straight,” the company said in response to a request for comment by the Post.