Tech boss sacked for blowing whistle on China wins payout

James Titcomb

Mon, February 23, 2026 at 10:35 PM GMT+9 3 min read

Ron Black said his unfair dismissal meant Imagination was unable to become a major tech player - David Rose

A tech boss who was sacked by a British microchip company for blowing the whistle on a move to China has received a multimillion-dollar payout.

Ron Black has received $2m (£1.5m) from Imagination Technologies after an employment tribunal declared he had been unfairly dismissed for whistleblowing.

Mr Black was removed as Imagination’s chief executive in 2020 after alerting MPs to an attempted “coup” in which a Chinese state-owned investment firm planned to take over the company’s board.

He later pursued the company at the employment tribunal, claiming his sacking prevented him from turning Imagination into a major player that could challenge the likes of chip giant Arm.

The Watford tribunal ruled in 2024 that Mr Black had been unfairly dismissed for making protected disclosures after objecting to a plan to install four new directors from state-owned China Reform.

The $2m award, made late last month, is less than 1pc of the $257m Mr Black had claimed he was owed.

Hertfordshire-based Imagination was listed on the London Stock Exchange and supplied graphics technology to companies including Apple before Canyon Bridge, a private equity firm backed by state-owned investor China Reform, paid £550m for it in 2017.

The company sparked a national security row in April 2020 when China Reform attempted to install four new directors, assuming majority control of the board in a move that Mr Black claimed would make it “a Chinese government controlled company”.

The board takeover was only narrowly averted after a last-minute intervention from the Government in April 2020. Mr Black told the tribunal that Imagination’s technology could be used by China for military purposes.

Imagination had contended that Mr Black was sacked for attempting to orchestrate a power grab due to strategic differences with other board members. The tribunal had ruled that he would have been likely to leave the company anyway.

It awarded Mr Black the sum for lost salary and bonuses, as well as £27,000 for “injury to feelings”.

The payout ends a five-year legal case that has hung over Imagination, one of Britain’s last remaining significant semiconductor companies.

The company recently appointed its eighth chief executive in 10 years, hiring German executive Markus Mosen.

Imagination took steps towards a US flotation in 2023 but cancelled the plans and has considered selling the company in recent years. However, it has been marred by links to China, including claims that it sold designs to now-blacklisted military suppliers.

Imagination says it has never licensed its technology for military use.

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David Harold, an analyst at John Peddie Research and former Imagination executive, said the end of Mr Black’s case could lead to the company finally being sold. “With litigation closed and leadership stabilised, the company appears more transaction-ready than it has in some time,” he wrote in a research note.

Imagination and Mr Black were contacted for comment.

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