In addition to regulatory barriers to their merger in the UK, Arm and NVIDIA have another pickle to contend with following reports that the CEO of Arm’s Chinese subsidiary has “gone rogue.”

Hot Hardware claimed Allen Wu, who leads the Chinese division, abused his tenure to set up an entirely new outfit called Alphatecture, by offering Arm clients discounts in exchange for shares.

Despite Arm China’s board members voting to oust Wu, by 7-1, he remains in command because he owns the seal to the company, which under Chinese law makes his office almost impregnable.

Wu then doubled down on his leadership in response by putting security personnel on his own books, preventing Arm employees from entering the premises.  Those challenging his stance have been handed their marching orders.

Allen Wu has since sued Arm China over his dismissal, but is apparently both the plaintiff and defendant in legal terms. He says Arm China is now independent, having run events under the “XPU” brand to market various processing units for the IoT market.