LS Cable & System: 'Theft of Submarine Cable Factory Layout Is a Clear Criminal Act'

2024.07.15. The Fair Economy — LS Cable & System said on the 15th that it will take all legal measures at home and abroad if allegations that Taihan Cable & Solution stole its technology are confirmed, in connection with reports that Taihan's offices were searched in connection with the allegations.

According to recent media reports, police on the 11th classified Taihan Cable & Solution as a suspect for violating the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act (Unfair Competition Prevention Act) and conducted a search and seizure at its headquarters in Seocho-gu, Seoul.

Additionally, earlier last month, police also conducted a search and seizure at the Goun Comprehensive Architectural Office, which designed LS Cable & System's cable plant, and at the Taihan Cable & Solution cable plant in Dangjin County, Chungcheongnam-do.

LS Cable & System explained that the core of this case is whether Taihan Cable & Solution stole LS Cable & System's subsea cable manufacturing equipment drawings and layout.

An LS Cable & System official said, "The subsea cables that Taihan Cable & Solution claims to have supplied are only short cables of 1-2 km. The technology for manufacturing and transporting long cables of dozens of kilometers and thousands of tons—namely, the equipment and factory layout—is the core competitiveness of subsea business."

According to LS Cable & System, subsea cable equipment and layout are established independently by each manufacturer and are generally not disclosed. LS Cable & System also custom-built its equipment, and during the construction of subsea Units 1 through 4, it invested hundreds of billions of won in R&D and incurred failure costs to develop its manufacturing know-how.

LS Cable & System provided drawings that specify the size, weight, and characteristics of each piece of equipment to the Goun Comprehensive Architectural Office for the layout of extrusion, stranding, and other process equipment.

An LS Cable & System official said, "We signed a non-disclosure agreement with the Goun Comprehensive Architectural Office to prevent the leakage of design drawings, and repeatedly received assurances of compliance, yet this incident occurred. Taihan Cable & Solution reportedly contacted the Goun Comprehensive Architectural Office first and requested designs multiple times, and the contract amount is said to be more than twice that of LS Cable & System. Additionally, we heard that Taihan Cable & Solution also contacted other LS Cable & System partners to obtain the same equipment manufacturing and layout."

Taihan Cable & Solution countered that it already possesses subsea cable equipment and production technology, and therefore LS Cable & System's claims are not true.

Taihan Cable & Solution said through various media, "We have been conducting research on subsea cables since 2009, and since 2016 we have installed subsea cable production equipment such as vertical joint machines and turntables at our existing plant, producing internal network subsea cables at this facility, and have been supplying them to offshore wind farms in the southwestern sea since 2017."