UK govt blocks Hong Kong company’s acquisition bid

National security powers invoked on IP grounds for a second time | Tech related to design and manufacture of semiconductors.

The UK government has stopped a Hong Kong-based company from acquiring the IP of a UK company covering electronic design automation products.

UK Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng said the order—which prevents Super Orange HK from acquiring Pulsic—was “necessary and proportionate to mitigate the risk to national security”.

The order was made pursuant to the National Security and Investment Act 2021, which was introduced in January this year and gives the UK government powers to scrutinise and intervene in business transactions to protect national security.

According to its website, leading semiconductor companies use Pulsic’s products to achieve significant improvements in their design productivity.

Kwarteng said that Pulsic’s IP, knowledge, processes and techniques for its software could “facilitate the building of cutting-edge integrated circuits that could be used in a civilian or military supply chain”.

The order added that there was a potential that the electronic design automation could be “exploited to introduce features into the design, including automatically and/or without knowledge of the user that could be used to build defence or technological capabilities”.

In late July, the government used its new national security powers for the first time to prevent Beijing Infinite Vision Technology Co from buying vision sensing technology IP from the University of Manchester.

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