The conflict between Taekwang Industrial and Truston Asset Management (Truston), the No. 2 shareholder, has ultimately escalated into a legal battle. After Taekwang Industrial filed a police complaint against Truston for defamation and obstruction of business, Truston pushed back, noting it responded with a complaint instead of answering the open letter.
According to the financial investment industry on the 14th, Taekwang Industrial filed a police complaint against three people, including Truston's CEO, on charges of defamation and obstruction of business.
A Taekwang Industrial official said the purpose of the complaint is that the shareholder letter, which contained false information, damaged the reputations of Taekwang Industrial and its directors and obstructed normal management activities.
According to the complaint, the accused, through an open letter sent to Taekwang Industrial's board and directors on the 3rd, called the Taekwang Group management council a "ghost-like body" that controls group management, and disparaged Taekwang Industrial's board as a hollowed-out organization that merely ratifies the council's decisions.
A Taekwang Industrial official said, the inter-affiliate consultative body changed its name to the management support council in Aug. last year, and the management council does not even exist now, adding Truston's claim is clearly false.
Truston issued an official statement the same day to rebut this. Truston said, the number of answers to the 10 questions in the Sept. 3 letter is still zero, noting the reply deadline was Oct. 3, but instead of answering the questions, a complaint was filed.
Truston said that on the 3rd it requested fact-checking on 10 items, including the basis for establishing the organization in the articles of incorporation and disclosures, its composition, and whether it was involved in Taekwang Industrial's decision-making, and demanded a reply within 30 days, but received no answer and instead faced a complaint.
A Truston official said, Taekwang Industrial, in revealing the filing of the complaint, for the first time acknowledged that during former Chair Kim Ki-yu's tenure the management council effectively served as the group's control tower, and at the same time claimed the management council changed its name to the management support council in "Aug. last year." The official added this means the "management council" existed for nearly two years even after former Chair Kim was dismissed in Aug. 2023.
Truston pointed out that the key matters all occurred within the "period of the management council's existence" that Taekwang disclosed, adding that the three directors who were on the board at that time are still serving as directors, making this an issue of the current board, not the past.
Truston also countered the charge of "obstruction of business by intimidation," saying that calling it "intimidation" to notify that it would exercise the shareholder rights granted by the Commercial Act—inspection and copying of accounting books (Article 466), a derivative suit (Article 403), and a request to convene an extraordinary shareholders' meeting (Article 366)—treats the exercise of shareholder rights itself as a crime.