An aerial view of LS Cable & System's manufacturing site in Donghae, Gangwon Province (LS Cable & System)

LS Cable & System pledged Monday to take every legal action possible against Taihan Cable & Solution if the latter’s alleged theft of the former’s technologies is found true, labeling Taihan’s maneuver as a clear crime.

The police have recently opened a probe into Taihan over the suspected violation of the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act.

Last month, the police initially suspected Gaun Architects & Engineers of leaking technologies it obtained from LS while designing its submarine high-voltage direct current cable manufacturing plants in Gangwon Province between 2008 and 2023. Authorities then raided Gaun’s office in Seoul and Taihan’s factory in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, as Gaun took part in designing and constructing Taihan’s plant.

LS explained that the key issue is whether Taihan stole the design and layout of LS’ submarine cable facility. As Korea’s leading cable manufacturer, LS Cable & System is one of the six companies in the world to manufacture submarine high-voltage direct current cable.

“They are saying that Taihan reached out to Gaun first to ask for the factory design multiple times and (Taihan’s contract) is worth over twice as LS Cable’s,” said an LS official.

“We also heard that (Taihan) contacted other partners of LS Cable to ask for the same design and layout.”

Taihan has refuted the claims, stressing that the company has accumulated its own technological know-how since it began manufacturing submarine cables at its existing factory in 2016 and used the experience to draw up the layout of its plant in Dangjin.

LS pointed out that the submarine cables Taihan delivered were short models with lengths of between only one and two kilometers.

“The technology to manufacture and transport long cables stretching up to over 1,000 km, which is about the design and layout of the plant, is the core competitiveness of submarine cable businesses,” said an official at LS Cable & System.

Underscoring that the company has invested about 1 trillion in research and development of submarine cable plants over the last 20 years, LS said if the technological leak turns out to be true, the damage could be so severe that it would be almost impossible to recover.