Indicted LG Exec Posts CCTV Footage As Counter Evidence

We're used to hearing about lawsuits between firms, some of them bordering on ridiculous, but there are those that really take the cake. Korean rivals Samsung and LG are due to face in court, not over smartphones or TVs but over washing machines. Samsung alleges that LG secretly and willfully damaged its washing machines before IFA last year and is suing for damages and defamation. The LG exec named in the suit, naturally, denies the accusation and even released a video to the public as proof.

Quite amusingly, both companies are using the same video as evidence, and both claim that the other heavily edited the footage to suit their vendetta. As Samsung does not want to release the full CCTV footage, we only have LG's version of the events, which, of course, is quite heavily annotated.

The video shows Jo Seong-jin, LG head of home appliances division, and a bunch of other LG executives flocking around a Samsung washing machine. The also shows Jo putting some pressure on the machine's door, which Samsung claims resulted in the damage. Jo, however, has an explanation for that. He claims that he is only doing a standard strength test of washing machine doors and even shows videos of other people doing the same thing. Samsung argues that given Jo's strength, it wasn't a standard test and was enough to damage the equipment.

The LG executive also claims that the idea that a high-ranking head of a company would take such actions in public is beyond ridiculous. In fact, he says that Samsung employees were actually present and did not stop him from any of his "tests". To this, Samsung claims that those employees were not paying attention or distracted and did not catch the Jo in the act.

It's a classic he said, he said but, at least for now, Samsung seems to have the upper hand. Korean prosecutors have formally indicted Jo Seong-jin. LG sought to counter sue Samsung, but prosecutors did not follow through with it from lack of evidence.

VIA: CNET