The problem wasn’t simply that Chinese government-linked funds were buying up foreign chip firms. They were doing so in ways that violated laws about market manipulation and insider trading. While Canyon Bridge was maneuvering to purchase Lattice Semiconductor, for example, one of Canyon Bridge’s cofounders tipped off a colleague in Beijing, passing along details about the transaction via WeChat and at meetings in a Starbucks in Beijing. His colleague bought stock based on this knowledge; the Canyon Bridge executive was convicted of insider trading.
