SK Innovation, locked in a legal battle against domestic rival LG Chem recently, conducted a forensic inspection of its computer systems upon the order of the United States International Trade Commission earlier this month, industry sources said Tuesday.
The USITC ordered the firm on Oct. 3 to recover as many as 980 documents that were alleged to have been deleted by the company, the sources said.
The South Korean lithium-ion battery maker conducted the examination attended by LG Chem’s consultants on Oct. 8.
The USITC made the order at the request of LG Chem in September.
Based on the circumstances that SK Innovation had deleted and did not submit the 980 documents listed in a file named “SK00066125,” the US institution judged the documents could involve some key information in relation to LG Chem’s trade secrets.
“As LG Chem explains in the motion, there is concrete evidence that ‘LG Chem’s proprietary information’ can be found in the 980 documents listed in SK00066125,” the institution said.
The result of the inspection, which was required to recover all of the deleted documents, will be included as part of the ongoing discovery process by the ITC into the case of LG Chem vs. SK Innovation over allegations of job poaching and misappropriation of trade secrets, filed by LG in April.
A preliminary conclusion of the ITC investigation will be announced in June.
By Song Su-hyun (song@heralcorp.com)
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