In 2016 Semtech’s subsidiaries, EMEA and Gennum UK, begun legal proceedings in the English High Court against HiLight and various former Semtech employees subsequently employed by HiLight.
Among various claims, Semtech alleged that Mr. Steele and the other individual Defendants had (i) breached various non-competition and/or non-solicitation obligations and induced other individuals to do the same, and (ii) taken intellectual property and other proprietary information from Semtech in breach of confidence and used that confidential information to design competing transimpedence amplifier (TIA) products for HiLight.
Semtech is to be paid approximately $9million to cover damages for claims, costs and attorneys’ fees, of which Semtech already has received approximately $6.7 million.
Mohan Maheswaran, Semtech’s President and CEO, commented: “We are pleased with the outcome of this lawsuit and are resolute in our belief that our innovation, intellectual property and trade secrets need to be vigorously protected across all regions of the world, and we will seek to defend the company against any unfair practices that we believe hurts our shareholder value.”