Samsung, LG in court over washing machine vandalism

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics clashed in a Seoul court Friday over the latter’s alleged vandalism of washing machines.

The legal representatives for LG denied the allegations that its CEO Cho Seong-jin and two other company officials broke the doors of three Samsung washers.

But Samsung reiterated its position that the LG officials damaged its washing machines at the SATURN Berlin Europa-Center and SATURN Berlin Steglitz in Germany during the IFA trade show in September last year.

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

It was the first trial between the two sides in connection with the case. Video footage related to the incident was shown in court.

“The doors of the front-door washing machines are big and heavy, so they can naturally tilt downward to some extent and swing (up and down) a bit, conditions that can be easily found in other washers,” an attorney for LG said.

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’s testing of the washers.

The court will hold a session to examine evidence on July 21 and an examination of witnesses in August.

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

But prosecutors 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, South Gyeongsang Province.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)