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Nexperia’s Chinese owner Wingtech has lost a court battle to regain control of the Dutch chipmaker, prolonging a crisis that has threatened to bring some European car factories to a halt.
The Amsterdam appeal court instead upheld an earlier decision to suspend its Chinese chief executive, hand power to EU-based directors and investigate allegations of mismanagement.
The court “finds that there are valid reasons to doubt the sound policy and conduct of business at Nexperia and orders an investigation”, it said in a press release.
The Dutch government temporarily seized control of Nijmegen-based Nexperia in September, saying there was a threat to security of supply in Europe because of the actions of chief executive Zhang Xuezheng.
His shareholding was handed over to a trust, though he retained the economic benefits.
Since then, the European and Chinese arms of the company have stopped collaborating, causing a chip shortage that has hit the car industry.
Nexperia’s Hamburg plant has stopped shipping silicon wafers to China for final assembly as chips, claiming it was not being paid.
Customers are now buying wafers from the European arm and sending them to the Chinese one for assembly themselves to bypass the internal feud.
On Wednesday, the court’s Enterprise Chamber found “indications of negligent conduct involving a conflict of interest”, the press release said. “Furthermore, there are indications that Nexperia’s director, under threat of impending sanctions, changed the strategy without consulting the other board members; agreements with the Ministry of Economic Affairs were no longer followed, the powers of European officials were curtailed, and their resignations were announced,” the court said.
It will now appoint two investigators, who will work for about six months, the court said.
The court added that the investigation would include the conduct of the Dutch management of Nexperia, granting one of the key requests made by Wingtech.
In a hearing in January, Nexperia’s lawyers claimed that Zhang was moving equipment to China and used its assets to prop up Wing Systems, another company he owned.
The lawyers said that Wingtech was “doing everything it can to destabilise” the company and had “pressured virtually all of Nexperia’s business partners not to do business with it; and, as Nexperia understands from the [Dutch economy] minister’s statement of defence, it has even urged the Chinese government to impose export restrictions to harm Nexperia”.
During the hearing, Zhang denied allegations against him, saying European bosses mismanaged the business. He said he began strengthening Chinese production to create a resilient supply chain to deal with geopolitical shocks.
The US placed Wingtech on its “entity” list in late 2024, which meant US companies needed to get a licence to trade with it. The US commerce department in September said it would extend the restrictions to Nexperia as a subsidiary and court documents showed that US officials had warned the Dutch government that removing Zhang was necessary to avoid the listing.
Nexperia welcomed the ruling and said: “Despite the challenging situation, our underlying business continues to be healthy and resilient and we remain committed to being a strong, reliable partner for all our stakeholders including customers.
“As we look ahead, and as confirmed by today’s Enterprise Chamber ruling, the current situation now primarily asks for Nexperia to further stabilise its supply chain and ensure meeting customer demand worldwide.”
Wingtech said it regretted the court’s ruling, but added that it had “always been confident that a full, fair and impartial inquiry will demonstrate that the actions taken by the shareholder were appropriate and in the best interests of the company and its stakeholders”.
It said that the decision prolonged “a period of significant uncertainty for the business, which has already been under strain since October 2025” and it had not been “presented with any evidence justifying the extraordinary measures imposed”.