LG Chem drops case against Barclays

South Korea‘s leading chemical company LG Chem withdrew its suit against British investment bank Barclays for allegedly failing to identify a fraudulent account, the Seoul Central District Court said Friday.

LG had sought 24 billion won ($21 million) in damages from Barclays, claiming that the bank failed to fulfill its duty of preventing an erroneous remittance of money by matching the beneficiary and the account owner.

In March last year, upon receiving an email from what the company believed was its trading partner Aramco Products Trading Co., it wired 24 billion won in payment to an account that the email claimed was their new transaction account.

It turned out to be a case of spear-phishing, with the new account being irrelevant to the Saudi trading company. Investigation by the prosecution failed to confirm the source of the hacking.

LG Chem, after suffering the financial loss, filed the suit against the bank on Aug. 24 on grounds that the bank is required to check with companies if the account holder does not match with the name of the recipient of the money.

Three trials were held before LG Chem dropped the case on Feb. 9, after the two reached an agreement, according to the court. The details of the agreement remained undisclosed.

LG Chem imports naphtha from Aramco Products Trading, a subsidiary of oil producer Saudi Aramco. The two firms have maintained the partnership for years.

Saudi Aramco also is currently the largest shareholder of Korean oil refiner S-Oil with a 64 percent share, The Saudi firm bought up the S-Oil shares owned by Hanjin in 2014 with 2 trillion won. 

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)