{"id":83657,"date":"2025-12-10T22:04:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/83657\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T22:04:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T22:04:12","slug":"dallas-based-texas-instruments-among-firms-sued-for-supplying-parts-for-russian-missiles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/83657\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas-based Texas Instruments among firms sued for supplying parts for Russian missiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Texas<\/a>-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.<\/p>\n

Five lawsuits were filed Wednesday in state District Court in Dallas by a legal team led by Austin lawyer Mikal Watts<\/a> on behalf of individuals and families who were either injured or had relatives killed in attacks. San Antonio attorney James \u201cJamie\u201d Shaw<\/a> is also part of the team.<\/p>\n

The companies targeted are manufacturers Texas Instruments Inc.<\/a> of Dallas and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD)<\/a> and Intel Corp.<\/a>, California companies that have a significant presence in Austin. Mansfield-based Mouser Electronics Inc.<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

Watts\u2019 team represents about 20 plaintiffs, including 14 people who were killed and six who were injured.<\/p>\n

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Each lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages. The companies have not yet been served with the suits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe deeply respect the legal process and will respond to this matter in court, versus the media,\u201d Kevin Hess, senior vice president of marketing at Mouser Electronics, said in an email.<\/p>\n

The other companies didn\u2019t immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States of America has provided $175 billion in security assistance to Ukraine as it attempts to defend itself from Russian aggression,\u201d Watts said during a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington. \u201cBut most of the damage we\u2019re seeing there now is being caused by missiles and drones guided to their targets by American chip technology that\u2019s being illegally exported into Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those weapons have completely negated the value of the U.S.\u2019s security expenditures in Ukraine, he said during the event.<\/p>\n

Ukraine trip<\/p>\n

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<\/a> in front of a memorial at a playground in a residential neighborhood. It had been struck by a Russian missile that \u201cblew up a bunch of kids,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe now have a war strategy that is designed to focus on kids,\u201d he said Wednesday. \u201cThe Russians are focused on kids, attacking kids, killing kids, crushing the parents. It\u2019s just the saddest thing you\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the plaintiffs seek compensation for their damages, Watts said his clients\u2019 primary goal is to stop U.S. technology from being used in weapons being used to attack their country.<\/p>\n

The companies have made no effort to restrict the distribution of the chips \u201cother than to check the box to say that I\u2019m not directly selling to a guy named Vladimir Putin,\u201d he said. \u201cBut they know full well that these chips are getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the purpose of the press conference is to \u201cembarrass\u201d the companies into \u201cdoing what is right,\u201d Watts said. \u201cAs I\u2019ve learned, if you can assemble large numbers of plaintiffs and provide litigation pressure, it\u2019s going to get real expensive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Watts\u2019 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<\/a> caused cancer. While at his former firm, he headed up a legal team that obtained a $13.5 billion settlement against PG&E Corp.<\/a> on behalf of thousands of victims of the California wildfires in 2017 and 2018.<\/p>\n

The allegations<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs allege the companies committed \u201cdomestic corporate negligence\u201d in allowing their microchips, processors and programmable devices to be \u201cillegally diverted\u201d to Russia and Iran. The components enable the Russian military to remotely pilot missiles and drones to locations \u201cwhere Ukrainian citizens, including Plaintiffs, are vulnerable and defenseless from a military attack.\u201d <\/p>\n

The companies, by willfully ignoring the diversion of their products, \u201chave chosen to maximize profit\u201d ahead of their duties to take reasonable steps \u201cto keep their products out of the wrong hands,\u201d the complaints say.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Nearly 15,000 Ukrainians have been killed and more than 39,000 injured since Russia\u2019s invasion in February 2022, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDespite two years of savage, criminal aggression, and two years of sanctions, American technology is still fueling Russia\u2019s murderous war against Ukraine,\u201d the suit says. \u201cThe illicit flood of semiconductors into Russia is enabled by the knowing neglect or willful ignorance of American companies. It borders on intentional disregard.\u201d <\/p>\n

Plaintiffs cite only Texas state-law claims in their suit and do not allege any federal or international-law claims.<\/p>\n

The suit wasn\u2019t filed in Ukraine because it\u2019s \u201cnot a safe or adequate\u201d forum to litigate their claims, given it\u2019s an active war zone that would expose parties in the case to risks of injury or death, the plaintiffs say.<\/p>\n

The U.S. companies owed a \u201ccommon-law duty of care\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Hospital attack<\/p>\n

The named plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits were injured during a July 8, 2024, attack on Ukraine\u2019s children\u2019s hospital<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Babicheva, appearing by video, recounted the morning of the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had, together with the doctors, to get down (in the basement) to finalize the procedure of hemodialysis for the children,\u201d she said through a translator. \u201cAfter that, I could hear an explosion and I don\u2019t remember anything after that.\u2026 I came to my senses the next morning.\u201d <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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 \u201ccannot walk normally,\u201d the suit says.<\/p>\n

The two minor children eventually received new kidneys, Watts said.<\/p>\n

Other defendants in the cases are only identified as \u201cDoes 1-100\u201d and are referred to as \u201cunknown entities and individuals who may have participated in Defendants\u2019 distribution, export, and diversion chains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Texas-based companies and two with major operations in the state have been sued for allegedly illegally supplying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":83658,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,581,104,103,3621,27,1499,10487,3703],"class_list":{"0":"post-83657","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-county","10":"tag-dallas-headlines","11":"tag-dallas-news","12":"tag-technology","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-u-s-news","15":"tag-ukraine","16":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83657\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}