Taipei, Sept. 2 -- The Intellectual Property and Commercial Court (IPCC) of Taiwan has ordered one former employee and two current employees of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) to be detained and held incommunicado for allegedly stealing sensitive trade secrets involving the company's advanced 2 nanometer (nm) process.

According to a report by Focus Taiwan, the ruling was handed down after the three suspects named Chen Li-ming, a former TSMC engineer, and two current engineers, Wu Ping-chun and Ko Yi-ping, were referred to the IPCC on Monday morning.

A three-judge panel at the IPCC said the suspects deleted their communications records after their conduct was discovered. The judges noted that there were reasonable fears the...