Lawsuit Filed Against Texas Instruments, AMD & Intel

Reg Reinoso

Author

Plaintiffs Allege Illegal Export of American Chip Technology Used To Kill Innocent Ukrainian Civilians

A lawsuit filed in Texas state court seeks to hold American technology companies accountable for enabling the death and destruction inflicted on Ukrainian civilians. The suit, brought by Watts Law Firm LLP and BakerHostetler LLP, alleges that microchips manufactured by Texas Instruments, AMD, and Intel were used in weapons systems deployed by Russia and Iran against civilian targets. The plaintiffs are ordinary people whose lives were upended by drone and missile strikes. They seek relief for the deaths of family members, severe physical injuries, and the lasting psychological trauma that followed these attacks.

The lawsuit asserts that these American chipmakers failed to prevent their products from reaching hostile regimes. The claims in this case arise under Texas tort law, which imposes a duty on companies to act with reasonable care and to prevent foreseeable harm. The factual record includes extensive evidence that the defendants also violated U.S. export control laws designed to stop exactly this kind of diversion.

And the record is extensive. For years, federal agencies, journalists, and international watchdogs documented how these components were being routed into foreign weapons programs. The companies continued selling microprocessors and related components through channels they knew were vulnerable to misuse. The complaint lays out a consistent pattern of misconduct. Defendants sold into regions already identified as high risk. They continued doing business with distributors who had been publicly linked to sanctioned actors. The indicators of diversion were clear. They proceeded anyway.

These companies refused to take reasonable steps to prevent the foreseeable misuse of their technology. Rather than strengthen safeguards, they allowed high performance processors to move through well known gaps in the global supply chain until those components appeared in drones and missiles used against Ukrainian civilians.

For the plaintiffs, these issues are not abstract or distant. Some survived attacks that left them with significant physical injuries and lasting emotional trauma. Others lost loved ones when their homes, neighborhoods, or vehicles were struck.

Mikal Watts, founder of Watts Law Firm LLP, brings decades of courtroom experience and a national reputation for holding powerful entities accountable for corporate misconduct. Over the course of his career, he has recovered billions of dollars for clients in high-stakes litigation involving product defects, environmental disasters, catastrophic personal injury, and mass torts. He has tried dozens of cases to verdict and served in leadership roles across some of the country’s most consequential civil lawsuits. The firm’s work in complex, high-profile litigation is rooted in one simple idea: Corporations must be held accountable when its unlawful decisions made in the name of profit directly cause the death of innocents and widespread human suffering.

Causes of Action Alleged in the Complaint

The complaint has four causes of action. The first is a negligence claim. Plaintiffs allege that the defendants had a duty under Texas law to exercise reasonable care in how they designed, implemented, and enforced compliance and export control systems. The complaint states that the companies breached that duty in several ways. They failed to conduct adequate due diligence on high-risk customers and distributors. They failed to respond to repeated government advisories and public reports showing that their products were being diverted. They allowed sales to continue into known high-risk transshipment hubs without strengthening controls. They kept working with intermediaries that had been linked to diversion activity. They failed to take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable misuse of their microchips in weapons systems used against civilians. They also continued selling microprocessors and related technology, directly or indirectly, into channels that supplied China, Russia, and Iran, which ultimately armed the military drones used against Ukrainian civilians.

The complaint then alleges negligence per se. Plaintiffs assert that the defendants violated U.S. export control laws, sanctions regulations, and Executive Orders entered by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden that bar the diversion of sensitive microelectronics to hostile actors. These laws exist to prevent U.S. technology from reaching foreign weapons programs and to protect civilians from the harm that follows when those safeguards are ignored. Because the defendants violated these rules, the complaint treats their conduct as automatically negligent and a proximate cause of the injuries at issue.

Plaintiffs also bring a claim for gross negligence. They allege that the companies had actual knowledge of an extreme degree of risk. The harm was predictable. Public reporting showed their chips repeatedly appearing in Russian and Iranian weapons systems. Congressional testimony, industry analysis, and government warnings made the threat plain. Despite this information, the defendants allegedly failed to adopt effective compliance measures and continued their existing sales practices with full awareness of the potential consequences.

The complaint next sets out wrongful death claims. Families who lost loved ones in drone and missile attacks allege that defendants’ negligent and grossly negligent conduct was a direct and proximate cause of those deaths. These plaintiffs seek damages for the loss of companionship, mental anguish, and other harms recognized under the Texas Wrongful Death statute.

Finally, the complaint includes survival claims. Plaintiffs assert that the decedents suffered physical pain, mental anguish, property loss, and medical expenses before death. Their estates seek recovery for those losses, as well as funeral expenses. Because the complaint alleges that the defendants acted with gross negligence, both the wrongful death and survival claims seek exemplary damages as permitted by Texas law. Exemplary damages are a category of damages intended to punish especially wrongful conduct and to deter similar conduct in the future.

Documented Evidence of Prior Notice

Texas companies should be held accountable because the diversion of their products into foreign weapons systems was neither hidden nor unforeseeable. The record shows that the defendants had clear notice for years that their chips were being routed into Russian and Iranian drones and missiles. They were warned by regulators, investigators, and independent researchers that their products were appearing in weapons used against civilians. Despite this knowledge, they continued to rely on the same high-risk distributors and online channels. The complaint asserts that they made these choices because the profits outweighed any concern for the destruction their technology was helping to fuel.

Public reporting made the danger obvious. In March 2023, the U.S. Institute of Peace released a report documenting the extensive use of American-made electronics in Iranian drones. Those drones, later modified and deployed by Russia, struck Ukrainian residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure. The study found that 77 to 82 percent of the components recovered from downed drones originated from U.S. companies, including TI.

PBS, working with the Pulitzer Center, broadcast an investigation titled Arming Russia. The report traced American microelectronics into Russian cruise missiles. It showed how weapons systems that depend on precision chips were being powered by components produced by U.S. semiconductor companies, and how these weapons systems would not be able to find their targets without these components. 

Further evidence emerged in August 2023, when the Kyiv School of Economics and the International Working Group on Russian Sanctions published a breakdown of 174 foreign components found in Russian drones. Nearly 70 percent of the parts came from U.S. companies. Among the most common were Xilinx chips manufactured by AMD.

In November 2023, the Institute for Science and International Security released another detailed report. This one focused on the Shahed 136 drone, assembled in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone. The analysis identified specific Western components, including FPGAs and microcontrollers produced by the defendants, as essential to the drone’s ability to evade countermeasures and reach its targets.

Alerts came from inside the companies as well. In 2023, Texas Instruments shareholders pressed the board to investigate how TI chips were repeatedly showing up in restricted and sanctioned markets. The board rejected the proposal and stated in its written opposition that complete traceability and prevention of product misuse was “unachievable.” That response signaled to investors that the company either could not or would not take stronger steps to control its distribution channels. By the next year, shareholder pressure had intensified. Investors approved a proposal requiring a third party audit to examine the flow of TI products into high risk regions and to evaluate whether the company’s existing compliance systems were failing. This level of internal concern underscored the mounting evidence that diversion was a known and growing problem.

The warnings outlined above reflect only a small part of the evidence plaintiffs cite on the defendants’ prior knowledge and the foreseeability of harm. Even with these external and internal red flags, TI, AMD, and Intel continued to rely on online sales and distributors vulnerable to circumvention. Russian websites openly advertised their microprocessors. Intermediaries based in China and Hong Kong placed large bulk orders. The complaint alleges that the defendants either ignored these warning signs or failed to fix systems they already knew were inadequate. 

A Case That Demands Accountability

Watts Law Firm LLP is proud to stand alongside BakerHostetler LLP to represent the plaintiffs in this important case. These are not abstract claims. They involve innocent people who have suffered death, injury, and profound emotional trauma at the hands of weapons built using American technology. 

This lawsuit is about more than individual accountability. It is about systemic failure and the cost of corporate inaction in the name of profit. The defendants in this case, Texas Instruments, AMD, and Intel, failed to safeguard their products. Despite repeated public warnings and well-documented risks, they allowed high-performance microchips to be sold into vulnerable distribution channels. These chips were ultimately used in missiles, drones, and other weapons deployed against civilians in Ukraine.

The plaintiffs seek compensation for their losses. But they also seek something more. They want to send a clear message that American companies must take responsibility when their technologies are weaponized and used to commit harm across the globe.

Watts Law Firm LLP seeks to hold the defendants responsible for the consequences of their actions and intentional omissions. The outcome of this case could shape the future of tech industry responsibility and global supply chain oversight. It ultimately seeks to bring long-overdue accountability to a sector that too often avoids consequences while others are forced to pay a steep price.

This article is for informational purposes only and is based on allegations made in a filed court complaint and from publicly-available sources. This article does not constitute legal advice. Reading this material does not create an attorney-client relationship. Individuals should consult qualified counsel for advice regarding their specific circumstances.