Chaebol Slapfight

Europa-Center, a shopping mall on the west side of Berlin, Germany, where the incident took place.
Europa-Center, a shopping mall on the west side of Berlin, Germany, where the incident took place.

 

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics clashed in the Seoul District Court on July 3 over the latter’s alleged vandalism of washing machines.

Samsung Electronics had filed complaints with the prosecution office against LG executives last year, arguing that they obstructed business operations by breaking its goods and falsely stating that the washing machines had already been broken.

In the first trial between the two Korean home appliance giants, the legal representatives for LG gave an item-by-item rebuttal of the allegations that CEO Cho Seong-jin and two other officials at the company broke the doors of three Samsung washing machines intentionally. 

“The doors of the front-door washing machines are big and heavy, so they can naturally tilt downward to some extent and swing a little bit, which can be easily found in other washing machines,” a legal representative for LG appealed.

The attorney also raised suspicions about the authenticity of the damaged washing machines presented to the court as evidence, arguing that the products seemed to have had more scratches than before, and that they could not be the results of Cho touching the washers.

Arguing innocence of CEO Cho, LG showed video footage of a 3D animation related to the case in the first trial.

But the prosecutors office kept its position that the LG executives damaged Samsung washing machines at the Saturn Berlin Europa-Center and Saturn Berlin Steglitz in Germany during the IFA trade show in Sept. last year.

The court will hold a session to examine evidence on July 21 and an examination of witnesses in August, for which the prosecutors office has airlifted seven of the washing machines from the case in Germany.

Meanwhile, in line with their agreement in March to drop all ongoing lawsuits between the two sides, they recently decided to put an end to the legal battle over the vandalism case.

The prosecutors office, however, pushed ahead with the trial after LG demanded the transfer of the case from the Seoul Central District Court to a local district court in Changwon City, South Gyeongsang Province.

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