Infineon finally settles Qimonda case for €800m
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Qimonda’s insolvency administrator and Infineon Technologies have reached a final agreement after nearly 15 years of legal disputes with a payment of €800m.
The deal centred around the value of the assets of memory business that Infineon spun out in 2006 as Qimonda. At its peak, it employed around 13,500 people worldwide and was one of the world’s top-selling memory chip manufacturers.
The company went public on the New York Stock Exchange in August 2006 but filed for insolvency in January 2009. A lawsuit on the underfunding of the balance sheet and difference liability has been pending since 2010.
In the lawsuit file in 2010 before the Munich I Regional Court, the insolvency administrator claimed that the memory business spun off and brought in by Infineon Technologies was not valuable. The insolvency administrator sued for reimbursement of the difference between the issue amounts of the shares issued to Infineon in the course of the spin-off of Qimonda, the so-called “under-balance sheet and difference liability.
The expert appointed by the court submitted a report in January 2024 that showed a negative value for the contributed domestic and foreign business areas. Both parties raised objections to the report. Infineon had also relied on other aspects, such as that the liquidation value of the contributed assets would reach the values required for the contributions in kind. This was not the subject of the report.
After the report was presented, the parties held intensive settlement talks. The negotiated settlement now provides for a settlement amount of €800m, although the actual payment amount is somewhat lower as a partial settlement in 2014 for €15m is also included After deducting all items, Infineon will pay €753.5m to the insolvency estate of Qimonda AG.
The creditors’ committee of Qimonda AG and the management board and supervisory board of Infineon Technologies AG have already approved the settlement.
This brings the total paid by Infineon to the estate to around €1bn, with €1.2bn recovered for creditors including revenues from Qimonda’s patent portfolio.
“With the settlement, the last contentious matter in the insolvency proceedings concerning the assets of Qimonda AG was resolved. Preparations for the conclusion of the proceedings can now begin, so that the creditors can also benefit from the great success,” said insolvency administrator Dr. Michael Jaffé.
Qimonda’s patent portfolio comprised thousands of patents and patent applications worldwide. The intellectual property rights related to inventions relevant to the semiconductor, computer and telecommunications industries, most of which had, however, been licensed to major market participants prior to the insolvency. Numerous legal disputes were then conducted at home and abroad over the continued existence of the licenses during the insolvency. In particular, there was dispute as to the effect that the German insolvency proceedings had on the licensing rights to Qimonda’s US patents.
The former license holders, including Samsung, Infineon, IBM, Hynix, Intel, Nanya and Micron, took the position that their licensing rights continued to exist despite the insolvency in a case that went to the Supreme Court in the US in 2014.
At the same time, the patent portfolio was marketed through a licensing campaign, which also included patent litigation. This resulted in license revenues of around €100m and the patent portfolio was finally offered on the market in an international sales process and sold to Infineon Technologies as the best bidder.
Infineon also bought back the Qimonda memory fab in Dresden in 2011.
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