Police have begun verifying the facts after a complaint alleged that a Hanwha affiliate stole a small business's technology.
According to the South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency on the 20th, Small and Medium Enterprise A, headquartered in Cheonan, South Chungcheong, filed a complaint last year accusing a Hanwha affiliate of violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Act by infringing on its trade secrets.
Company A holds technology for manufacturing heat-dissipation products, and the complaint claims that Hanwha, in the process of proposing a merger and acquisition with them, secured trade secrets, then established its own affiliate and developed heat-dissipation products based on the technical data it obtained.
The Industrial Technology Security Investigation Unit of the South Chungcheong Provincial Police Agency, which launched the investigation, conducted searches and seizures of an office of a Hanwha affiliate located in Gyeonggi Province and partner companies to secure and analyze related documents, while preparing to summon Hanwha officials for questioning.
In response, Hanwha reportedly denied the allegations, saying that the heat-dissipation products rely on technology already disclosed in papers and elsewhere and lack originality, and that they were independently developed through research by specialists.
It is said to have acknowledged proposing a merger and acquisition to Company A, but claimed the deal fell through due to mismatched conditions and that all materials obtained during due diligence were discarded.
A police official said, "We plan to proceed with a full-fledged investigation of Hanwha as soon as we finish examining the evidence," adding, "It is difficult to disclose details as the two companies' claims conflict and the matter is under investigation."