Researchers at LG Energy Solution (formerly LG Chem, left) and SK Innovation each show their own battery cells. Provided by each company
SK Innovation’s board of directors expressed a strong position on LG Energy Solutions, which has sharply confronted with the settlement of the current electric vehicle battery trade secret dispute. In some cases, he even expressed his willingness to give up his business in the US.
According to SK Innovation on the 11th, the expanded audit committee held the day before regarding the final decision of the US International Trade Commission (ITC) imposing a 10-year import ban made it clear that “if LG’s request is excessive, it cannot be accepted.” . All outside directors attended this audit committee.
Unable to accommodate unreasonable requirements… ITC loses due to insufficient response to US judicial proceedings
On this day, the Audit Committee received a report on the progress of the negotiations between the two sides, including the newly proposed negotiation conditions and LG Energy Solution’s reaction. “We will closely review the requirements of our competitors at the board level,” but they agreed that “In fact, SK Innovation has no meaning to continue its battery business in the United States, or requirements at a level that significantly lower business competitiveness will be unacceptable.” did.
The Audit Committee also strongly reprimanded the company’s response for poorly responding to US judicial procedures due to lack of experience in global disputes. Along with this, the global lawsuit response system was reorganized, and external global experts were appointed to establish a complete legal compliance (compliance) monitoring system.
This is because the audit committee’s order was believed that the decisive cause of the defeat in the US ITC lawsuit was the capture of the destruction of evidence. SK Innovation has emphasized that the deletion of e-mails containing battery contents was a normal procedure and was not intentional destruction of evidence. It is in the judgment that if there was sufficient understanding of the US judicial process, the data would have been kept as it was, and as a result, it would not have been judged to infringe trade secrets.
Woo-seok Choi, CEO of SK Innovation’s Board of Directors, said, “It is very unfortunate that SK Innovation lost its global business because he did not have an opportunity to defend against the infringement of trade secrets, which is the essence of the lawsuit, and that responding to US judicial proceedings was insufficient.” At the time of expansion, it is very urgent and critical to strengthen the compliance system beyond global standards.”
LG “Lack of authenticity to solve problems”… Consensus is still parallel
Meanwhile, LG Energy Solutions is consistent with the attitude of not acknowledging the infringement of the trade secret itself, even though the final decision was made that it was certain that the whole trade secret was stolen in response to the SK Innovation audit committee’s action focused on’destruction of evidence’. “He criticized, “It lacks sincerity for problem solving.” Regarding the level of compensation, he repeated the previous position, saying, “It is absurd to mention the unacceptable as’unreasonable demand’ from the perspective of the perpetrator of our proposal based on the US Federal Trade Secret Protection Act, which is a global standard.”
Inside and outside the industry, SK Innovation presented new conditions after the final decision of the ITC, but it is believed that the gap between the two companies on this day was only confirmed. It is from the observation that the difference in position of 3 trillion won suggested by LG Energy Solutions and hundreds of billions of billions produced by SK Innovation will remain.
On the other hand, in the case of the US presidential veto, which is betting on SK Innovation’s hope, it will be difficult for the US, which pressures China with intellectual property rights as a weapon, to exercise its veto power on the basis of the development of its own electric vehicle industry on the decision to infringe trade secrets. The time comes out too.
Kim Kyung-jun reporter [email protected]
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