US Largest Investment Bank VS Largest Electric Vehicle Company 200 Billion Won Lawsuit Battle

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Yujin Cho] The American investment bank JP Morgan Chase has filed a lawsuit against Tesla for $162 million (approximately 190.9 billion KRW), the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on the 16th (local time).

According to WSJ, JP Morgan filed a complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on the same day, alleging that Tesla refused to exercise JP Morgan's common stock call option expiring in June-July of this year.

According to the complaint, JP Morgan entered into a call option contract in 2014 to purchase Tesla's common stock at $560 per share in June-July of this year.

However, in 2018, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted that he was "considering taking Tesla private," causing Tesla's stock to repeatedly plunge.

JP Morgan argued that Musk's tweet constituted a significant corporate event that could adjust the exercise price.

At that time, JP Morgan lowered the exercise price to maintain an equivalent fair market value after Musk's tweet, but when Musk abandoned the plan to take Tesla private, JP Morgan readjusted the exercise price to reflect the stock price increase.

In the complaint, JP Morgan claimed, "Tesla blatantly ignored its clear contractual obligation to pay JP Morgan in full."

In a letter sent to JP Morgan in February 2019, Tesla criticized the adjustment of the exercise price as unreasonably rapid and accused it of being an opportunistic attempt to exploit Tesla's stock price volatility.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.