TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Prosecutors on Wednesday charged three engineers with violating the National Security Act for allegedly stealing technology secrets from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

The Intellectual Property Branch of the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office requested sentences of 14 years for Chen Li-ming (陳力銘), nine years for Wu Bing-jyun (吳秉駿), and seven years for Ko Yi-ping (戈一平), per Liberty Times. The defendants include both current and former TSMC staff.

TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, uncovered the practices through an internal investigation and filed suit on July 8. One of the suspects had later joined the Taiwan branch of Japanese chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron. The firm denied involvement in the case and dismissed the engineer. All three suspects are in custody.

According to prosecutors, this is the first case brought under an amendment to the National Security Act targeting state-level economic espionage, per CNA. The engineers are accused of stealing data related to TSMC’s 2-nanometer chip technology.