Two Texas-based companies and two with major operations in the state have been sued for allegedly illegally supplying semiconductor components used to arm Russian missiles and Iranian drones that have attacked Ukraine civilians.
Five lawsuits were filed Wednesday in state District Court in Dallas by a legal team led by Austin lawyer Mikal Watts on behalf of individuals and families who were either injured or had relatives killed in attacks. San Antonio attorney James “Jamie” Shaw is also part of the team.
The companies targeted are manufacturers Texas Instruments Inc. of Dallas and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD) and Intel Corp., California companies that have a significant presence in Austin. Mansfield-based Mouser Electronics Inc., a distributor, is also a defendant. They are being sued for gross negligence, wrongful death, fraudulent concealment and conspiracy to evade and/or violate export restrictions to Russia and Iran.
Watts’ team represents about 20 plaintiffs, including 14 people who were killed and six who were injured.
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Each lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages. The companies have not yet been served with the suits.
“We deeply respect the legal process and will respond to this matter in court, versus the media,” Kevin Hess, senior vice president of marketing at Mouser Electronics, said in an email.
The other companies didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
“The United States of America has provided $175 billion in security assistance to Ukraine as it attempts to defend itself from Russian aggression,” Watts said during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington. “But most of the damage we’re seeing there now is being caused by missiles and drones guided to their targets by American chip technology that’s being illegally exported into Russia.”
Those weapons have completely negated the value of the U.S.’s security expenditures in Ukraine, he said during the event.
Ukraine trip
Watts said he just returned from a nine-day investigative trip to Ukraine, including a stop in Kryvyi Rhi, where he posted a video on Facebook in front of a memorial at a playground in a residential neighborhood. It had been struck by a Russian missile that “blew up a bunch of kids,” he said.
“We now have a war strategy that is designed to focus on kids,” he said Wednesday. “The Russians are focused on kids, attacking kids, killing kids, crushing the parents. It’s just the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.”
While the plaintiffs seek compensation for their damages, Watts said his clients’ primary goal is to stop U.S. technology from being used in weapons being used to attack their country.
The companies have made no effort to restrict the distribution of the chips “other than to check the box to say that I’m not directly selling to a guy named Vladimir Putin,” he said. “But they know full well that these chips are getting there.”
Part of the purpose of the press conference is to “embarrass” the companies into “doing what is right,” Watts said. “As I’ve learned, if you can assemble large numbers of plaintiffs and provide litigation pressure, it’s going to get real expensive.”
Watts’ law firm touts that it has collected settlement recoveries exceeding $7 billion. That includes a settlement from last year of as much as $2.2 billion to resolve claims by about 80,000 people who alleged a discontinued version of the heartburn drug Zantac caused cancer. While at his former firm, he headed up a legal team that obtained a $13.5 billion settlement against PG&E Corp. on behalf of thousands of victims of the California wildfires in 2017 and 2018.
The allegations
The plaintiffs allege the companies committed “domestic corporate negligence” in allowing their microchips, processors and programmable devices to be “illegally diverted” to Russia and Iran. The components enable the Russian military to remotely pilot missiles and drones to locations “where Ukrainian citizens, including Plaintiffs, are vulnerable and defenseless from a military attack.”
The companies, by willfully ignoring the diversion of their products, “have chosen to maximize profit” ahead of their duties to take reasonable steps “to keep their products out of the wrong hands,” the complaints say.
American companies are prohibited by law from selling their technology, directly or indirectly, to Russia and Iran, as well as to companies in those nations. U.S. companies are also required by law to ensure that their technology is not sold through intermediaries to Russia and Iran.
The defendants have had extensive notice from government agencies, the media and elsewhere that their products are being diverted for weapons programs in Russia and Iran, the suits say.
Nearly 15,000 Ukrainians have been killed and more than 39,000 injured since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Despite two years of savage, criminal aggression, and two years of sanctions, American technology is still fueling Russia’s murderous war against Ukraine,” the suit says. “The illicit flood of semiconductors into Russia is enabled by the knowing neglect or willful ignorance of American companies. It borders on intentional disregard.”
Plaintiffs cite only Texas state-law claims in their suit and do not allege any federal or international-law claims.
The suit wasn’t filed in Ukraine because it’s “not a safe or adequate” forum to litigate their claims, given it’s an active war zone that would expose parties in the case to risks of injury or death, the plaintiffs say.
The U.S. companies owed a “common-law duty of care” under Texas law to the Ukrainians, the plaintiffs say, noting that Ukraine relinquished its nuclear weapons program in 1994 in exchange for security assurances from the United States.
Forensic inspections of debris from Russian weapons systems, including missiles and drones have repeatedly identified microchips manufactured by Texas Instruments, AMD, Intel or their affiliates, the suits say.
Hospital attack
The named plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits were injured during a July 8, 2024, attack on Ukraine’s children’s hospital in Kyiv. Livdmyia Dmytrivna and Oksana Fomeniuk each had a child who was receiving kidney dialysis treatment at the time of the blast. Dr. Olha Babicheva and nurse Viktoriia Didovets, who were injured while tending to the children, are also named plaintiffs.
Babicheva, appearing by video, recounted the morning of the attack.
“We had, together with the doctors, to get down (in the basement) to finalize the procedure of hemodialysis for the children,” she said through a translator. “After that, I could hear an explosion and I don’t remember anything after that.… I came to my senses the next morning.”
She suffered a skull bone injury, an orbital bone fracture and extensive arm injuries, leaving her with no feeling in her right arm. She suffers from dizziness and falls down frequently, the suit says. She also no longer conducts medical conferences because she does not speak well and has forgotten medical terminology.
Didovets sustained damage to her liver and a pelvic fracture and was unable to walk for months. She is unable to flex her right foot and “cannot walk normally,” the suit says.
The two minor children eventually received new kidneys, Watts said.
Other defendants in the cases are only identified as “Does 1-100” and are referred to as “unknown entities and individuals who may have participated in Defendants’ distribution, export, and diversion chains.