It took less than a week for attorneys in a class action suit against Samsung in South Korea to round up 500 customers interested in demanding compensation from the company after their experience with the Galaxy Note 7 recall. Public opinion has turned against Samsung in its home country as well as in the rest of the world, leading to the worst crisis in company history.
In the middle of all of this, shareholders are about to vote on an important new candidate for the company board: Jay Y. Lee, a member of the next generation of the Lee family that runs the conglomerate. (Warning: auto-play video at that link)
The company’s largest shareholder, a major pension fund in South Korea, has already declared its support for Jay Lee, but a large investors’ advisory firm has come out against his election to the board, as has an international activist investor.
The Galaxy Note 7 has turned investors and consumers against Samsung in a way that would have been unthinkable not long ago.
“It has caused a crack in the company’s confidence,” the president of a corporate watchdog in Seoul told Bloomberg Technology. “Samsung worked hard to build up a premium image, but its reputation has been fractured.”
The attorney behind the suit has threatened to file a new lawsuit every month, since the class action system in South Korea is apparently different from the one in the United States. Customers in the suit are demanding cash compensation for their trouble: 500,000 won or about $440.
Samsung’s Note 7 Crisis Sows Seeds of Rebellion on Home Turf [Bloomberg] (Warning: auto-play video)
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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