Key Points
- The Dutch government is reportedly willing to drop its corporate controls over Nexperia.
- This move is conditional on China resuming the export of Nexperia’s chips. A Dutch minister expects chip shipments to resume in the coming days.
- The government’s intervention, which gave it veto power, began on September 30.
- A shortage of Nexperia’s chips has disrupted global supply chains, especially in the auto industry.
The Dutch government is reportedly prepared to cancel an order that gave it the power to block or change major corporate decisions at the chipmaker Nexperia, but only if China resumes exporting the company’s critical chips. This news comes from a Bloomberg report on Friday, citing people familiar with the situation.
This development follows comments made by Dutch Economy Minister Vincent Karremans on Thursday. He said he believes that Nexperia’s computer chips will begin reaching customers in Europe and around the world in the coming days. Karremans also stated that the Netherlands would “support these developments, and will take the appropriate steps on our part where necessary.”
On Friday, a spokesperson for the minister’s office declined to comment on whether those “appropriate steps” would include ending the government’s intervention. That intervention, which started on September 30, gave the Dutch government veto power over Nexperia’s corporate decisions for one year.
According to the Bloomberg report, Dutch authorities are willing to suspend this ministerial order as soon as next week, provided that chip shipments resume and are verified in the coming days.
A shortage of Nexperia’s chips, stemming from a dispute with China over ownership and control of the Dutch company, has caused significant disruptions to auto supply chains. This has hit production hard and even caused some buyers to put their staff on temporary leave.
Nexperia’s chips are not only used in cars but are also widely found in industrial, computing, mobile, and consumer products. This potential deal could ease a major bottleneck in the global technology supply chain and signal a de-escalation of the dispute between the Netherlands and China.
