Coway Co., South Korea's leading water purifier maker, said Tuesday its chief executive offered to step down to take responsibility for selling defective products that caused a series of class action lawsuits.

Coway CEO Kim Dong-hyun will be replaced by Lee Hae-seon, a former co-head of CJ Cheiljedang Corp., CJ's food subsidiary, the company said in a regulatory briefing.

Lee's appointment will be confirmed in meetings of shareholders and the board of directors slated for Oct. 31, it said.

Kim, who took the top post in 2013, was blamed for sales of three ice maker/water purifier models manufactured and sold between April 2014 and December 2015, which were discovered to dispense water that had bits of nickel. The number of users involved was estimated at about 87,000.

Over 1,000 purifier users have filed lawsuits against Coway, claiming the company was aware of the defect for over a year but tried to cover it up.

Coway said it has collected around 96 percent of the sold products, vowing to take responsibility should any health problems be confirmed from using the company's products.

The consumers claim the intake of a small amount of nickel for an extended period of time is harmful to humans. It is widely known that breathing nickel dust can lead to lung cancer, but few studies have been conducted on the impact of the oral intake of the metal.

The latest consumer safety case broke out amid public anger over toxic humidifier sterilizers sold by the British firm Oxy Reckitt Benckiser, which have claimed more than 100 lives in South Korea. (Yonhap)