Microchip

manufacturers

Intel Corp.

,

Advanced Micro Devices Inc.

and

Texas Instruments Inc.

were accused in a

series of lawsuits

of failing to keep their technology out of

Russian-made weapons

used to kill and wound civilians in Ukraine.

Those companies – along with a company owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.  – demonstrated “willful ignorance” as third parties resold restricted chips to Russia to power drones and missiles in violation of

United States sanctions

, according to one of the five suits, filed Wednesday in state court in Texas.

The lawsuits, filed on the behalf of dozens of

Ukrainian civilians

by Mikal Watts and prominent law firm Baker & Hostetler, cite five attacks between 2023 and 2025 that killed dozens of people. One attack allegedly involved Iranian-made drones with components associated with Intel and AMD, while the others involved Russian-made KH-101 cruise missiles and Iskander ballistic missiles.

“These companies know their chip technology is making its way into Russia,” Watts, a veteran U.S. mass-tort lawyer, said at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday morning.

Texas Instruments, AMD and Intel didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday. In the past, they have said they fully comply with sanctions requirements, ceased business in Russia when the war broke out and have stringent policies to monitor compliance.

In congressional testimony last year, Shannon Thompson, the assistant general counsel at Texas Instruments, said the company “strongly opposes the use of our chips in Russian military equipment” and any such shipments “are illicit and unauthorized.”

One suit accused the companies of “domestic corporate negligence” over alleged failures in their export control and diversion-prevention systems. The suits were filed in Dallas by Watts on behalf of Ukrainian citizens. On Wednesday, he called the U.S. companies “merchants of death” that were making a “farce” of U.S. sanctions law.

The companies allegedly “allowed Defendants’ semiconductor components to be illegally diverted, including by foreseeable third parties, to Russia and Iran and incorporated into precision-guided munitions and drones deployed against civilians,” one of the lawsuits claimed.

“These defendants knew this diversion was going on but they have done nothing to stop it,” said Dustin Dow, a lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, which has more than 1,000 lawyers across more than a dozen U.S. offices. “It is intentional disregard.”

Robert Julian, another lawyer with Baker & Hostetler, which has recovered billions for investors defrauded by ponzi-scheme figure Bernard Madoff, said “my firm considers this case every bit as worthy and significant as recoveries that we’ve had for the Madoff investors” as well as a US$13.5 billion settlement for fire victims following the bankruptcy of California utility PG&E.

A Bloomberg News investigation last year showed that long-standing sanctions and export controls have failed to keep chips from AMD, Intel, Texas Instruments and others out of the hands of Russia’s military companies. The resold chips are the brains of drones, glide bombs, precision communication systems and the Iskander missiles that Moscow uses to hammer Ukraine’s cities, Bloomberg has reported.

The U.S. government has repeatedly warned chipmakers that they need to do more to stop the flow of chips. Last year, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said the companies are “objectively and consciously failing to prevent Russia from benefiting from the use of their technology.”

Wednesday’s suits identify Mansfield, Texas-based Mouser Electronics, which Berkshire acquired in 2007 when it bought Mouser’s parent company TTI Inc., as a business focused on selling and distributing semiconductor components.

Mouser is accused of facilitating the transfer of chips made by Intel, Texas Instruments and others to shell companies controlled by Russian proxies. One suit said that Mouser’s decisions and logistics operations “were a substantial domestic component of the misconduct that foreseeably contributed to Plaintiffs’ injuries abroad.”

Berkshire Hathaway didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Mouser Electronics senior vice president of marketing Kevin Hess said in a statement that “we deeply respect the legal process and will respond to this matter in court, versus the media.”

The cases were brought in Texas because the chip companies and Mouser are either based there or have substantial operations in the state, court filings show. The war made bringing the accusations in the Ukrainian court system unworkable, one filing said.

The cases were filed in the Circuit Court for the State of Texas (Dallas). The cases weren’t immediately visible on the court’s docket Wednesday, but an email shared by the plaintiffs’ lawyers showed that the cases had been filed. Once the court processes and accepts them, they become publicly visible.

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—With assistance from Madlin Mekelburg.

Bloomberg.com