NEW DELHI: India’s government is scrambling to prevent the boss of South Korea’s Samsung Electronics from being forced to appear in an Indian court on criminal charges over a $1.4m payment dispute, reports said yesterday.
The Supreme Court ordered Lee Kun-Hee, South Korea’s richest man, to appear in a local court within six weeks to answer fraud and other criminal charges stemming from the dispute or face arrest if he steps onto Indian soil.
New Delhi-based JCE Consultancy alleges Samsung “cheated” the Indian company out of $1.4m by failing to pay a bill dating from a 2001-02 transaction and names Lee as among the accused. The case has been dragging through India’s notoriously slow legal system since it was initially filed in 2005.
The Indian government fears the legal case against Samsung could aggravate bilateral commercial ties already strained by delays involving a giant South Korean steel project in India.
“It (the situation) is very unfortunate in our view. Samsung is a major player in India and we want them to continue to expand and invest in the country,” Amitabh Kant, secretary in India’s industrial policy department, told the Economic Times newspaper.
AFP
