Prosecutors Raid Samsung SDS Headquarters

Police investigating alleged software piracy by Samsung SDS yesterday raided the headquarters of the systems integration service provider.

Prosecutors and investigators from the Gangnam Police Station in Seoul seized all the computer hard drives from the 21-story Samsung SDS headquarters located in Yeoksam-dong, southern Seoul.

A police source said, “In order to find out whether illegal software programs were installed, we have sent five investigators to the firm. We are looking into documents handed over by the firm to verify whether the company has committed any illegal software piracy.”

Steema Software SL Co. filed a lawsuit against Samsung SDS in February, arguing that, “We believe that our intellectual property rights have been infringed by Samsung because it bought our Gauss software program, which was developed by utilizing our TeeChart application program, through Shift Information & Communication and resold the software to its affiliates.”

Police also raided BiscuitSoft and JSC Software Laboratory which were accused by other software firms including Hangul & Computer Co. of the same suspicions on that day.

With regard to this police raid, Samsung SDS denied the allegation, saying, “We bought the software program from Shift Information & Communication after paying our expenses. We believe the major issue here is about the conflict between Steema Software and Shift Information & Communication, which has nothing to do with Samsung SDS.”

alwaysj@donga.com