Szaferman Lakind

PRESS RELEASE

$1.085 MILLION JUDGMENT IN BREACH OF CONTRACT CASE

(September 30, 2008) On September 25, 2008, Final Judgment of $1,085,000 was entered in US District Court in Newark against LG International America for breach of contract. Intercon Enterprises, the plaintiff in the case, was represented by Daniel Sweetser of Szaferman, Lakind, Blumstein & Blader, P.C., of Lawrenceville, NJ.

On September 19, 2008, an eight person federal jury awarded Intercon Enterprises $805,000 in commissions relating to $40,000,000 in cable sales made by LGIA to the Comcast and Adelphia cable companies from 2000 to 2002. The three-day trial was held in US District Court in Newark and presided over by Judge Susan Wigenton. An additional $280,000 in interest was added to the award, bringing the total damages awarded to Intercon Enterprises to 1,085,000.

Intercon is a small importing company. In 1999, Kwan Kim, owner/operator of Intercon, learned of a great demand for fiber optic cable by US cable companies. He contacted LGIA, formerly of Ft. Lee, NJ, to inquire if its parent company in South Korea, LG Cable, was interested in exporting fiber optic cable to meet this demand. LGIA jumped at the opportunity and two years later, LGIA had about $100,000,000 in US sales.

Intercon had a verbal agreement with LGIA that it would receive a 2% commission on all sales to four major cable companies, including Comcast and Adelphia. The sales to these two companies alone totaled $50,000,000, but LGIA paid Intercon on only $10,000,000 of the sales. LGIA concealed the other $40,000,000 in sales from Intercon. Since Mr. Kim was not involved in the processing of orders, he did not learn of LGIA's breach until 2004 when he accidently came across the additional sales.

At trial, LGIA admitted it entered into a verbal agreement with Intercon, but denied that Intercon was owed any additional commissions. The jury did not believe LGIA and rejected its defense. After three hours of deliberations, the jury found that LGIA promised to pay Intercon a 2% commission on all sales to Comcast and Adelphia and returned a verdict for $805,000, the full amount claimed by Intercon.

According to Sweetser, "Cases involving verbal agreements are always difficult to prove because they depend largely on credibility. The jury obviously found that Mr. Kim was telling the truth about the agreement and did not believe LGIA. I could not be happier for my client. Intercon and Mr. Kim deserved to be paid and the jury verdict ensures that payment will finally be made."