– Ford, an American automaker, has stepped into arbitration over LG Energy Solutions and SK Innovation, which are fighting legally over whether electric vehicle battery trade secrets are infringed.
According to Reuters on the 12th (KST), Jim Parley Ford’s chief executive officer (CEO) tweeted on the day, “The agreement between the two companies that are (electric vehicle battery) suppliers is ultimately in the best interests for US (electric vehicle) manufacturers and workers. This becomes,” he said.
On the 11th, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) raised LG’s hand in a lawsuit for the infringement of trade secrets of rechargeable batteries by LG and SK. As SK Innovation infringed on LG Energy Solutions’ electric vehicle battery trade secrets, it issued an order to ban imports of raw materials and finished products for batteries for 10 years. Ford and Volkswagen, which are supplied with SK’s batteries, have a grace period allowing imports for four and two years, respectively.
The insides of automakers are burning. LG pressured SK to actively pursue an agreement over the ITC decision, but SK maintains its position that it expects US President Joe Biden’s veto to exercise its veto power, saying that it will correct the ITC results.
However, President Biden’s usual emphasis on improving unfair trade practices and protecting intellectual property rights, and it is unlikely that he will veto ITC decisions over disputes over trade secret infringement disputes by foreign companies, not their own. Ford, which has grown uncertain about the import of SK batteries, publicly expressed an opinion that the two LG-SK companies would conclude the dispute as soon as possible through an agreement.
The battery litigation battle between the two companies began in April 2019 when LG Energy Solutions (then LG Chem) filed a lawsuit against SK Innovation to the ITC and the Delaware District Court for’infringement of trade secrets’. At that time, LG Energy Solution was due to the discovery of specific data that leaked a lot of LG Chem’s core technologies from 2017, when SK Innovation announced that it would intensively foster the rechargeable battery business.
SK Innovation said, “It is fortunate that ITC has given a grace period so that it can supply batteries to Ford and Volkswagen to protect SK Innovation’s customers.” I will do everything,” he said. First of all, SK is betting on the results of the deliberation, but at the same time, it is in a situation to hurry to agree with LG.
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