Korea Exchange’s Seoul headquarters. Korea Exchange
The Capital Market Special Judicial Police (SJP) of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) has raided the Korea Exchange (KRX) in connection with a probe into L&F’s amended disclosure of its supply contract with Tesla.
According to the financial investment industry on the 27th, the SJP secured disclosure documents submitted by L&F and materials related to the disclosure review process at the KRX in Yeouido, Seoul, on that day.
The investigation is reported to concern allegations surrounding L&F’s amended disclosure of its large-scale supply contract. However, the Korea Exchange and its executives and employees are not targets of the investigation. The raid is understood to be in the nature of a witness examination, aimed at securing materials held by the exchange to verify facts related to L&F.
Earlier, L&F disclosed in February 2023 that it had signed a 3.8347 trillion won high-nickel cathode material supply contract with U.S. electric vehicle maker Tesla. The contract term ran two years, from early 2024 to the end of 2025.
However, on December 29 last year, two days before the contract’s expiry, the company issued an amended disclosure after market close reducing the supply contract’s size to 9,730,316 won. The company explained that the change resulted from a revision in supply volume, but the next day, on the 30th, L&F’s stock plunged 9.85% as a flood of panic selling hit the market.
The SJP is also reported to be examining L&F’s disposal of treasury shares carried out ahead of the amended disclosure.
On December 2 last year, L&F raised 128.1 billion won by disposing of 1 million treasury shares to overseas institutional investors. The SJP is reported to be checking whether the company, aware at the time that normal fulfillment of the Tesla supply contract had effectively become difficult, sold its treasury shares without disclosing this in order to avoid losses to the company.