Korean battery-making rivals SK Innovation Co. and LG Chem Ltd. have agreed to settle a trade-secret dispute that had threatened a $2.6 billion factory SKI is building in Georgia set to supply Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG with electric-vehicle batteries, the companies said Sunday.
That plant’s future had been in doubt after the U.S. International Trade Commission in February sanctioned SKI with a 10-year ban on importing batteries and the materials necessary to make them after finding the company destroyed evidence relating to the dispute.
The agreement between the battery makers will see SKI pay roughly $1.8 billion dollars and additional royalties, the companies said.
“We have decided to settle and to compete in an amicable way, all for the future of the U.S. and South Korean electric-vehicle battery industries,” said Jun Kim, chief executive of SKI, and Jong Hyun Kim, chief of LG Chem ’s battery division, in a statement.
The settlement comes just ahead of a Sunday deadline for the Biden administration to potentially veto the trade commission’s decision. President Biden has made electric vehicles and the batteries that power them a core component of his proposed $2.3 trillion infrastructure program. As part of that plan, he has proposed investing $174 billion in spurring uptake of electric vehicles.
