The Seoul Central District Court (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, June 13 (Korea Bizwire) — A Seoul court has ruled in favor of Samsung Electronics in a high-profile lawsuit filed by over 1,800 Galaxy smartphone users, who claimed the company misled them by pre-installing software that throttled device performance without adequate disclosure.
In a ruling delivered Wednesday, the Seoul Central District Court dismissed the damages claim, stating that although Samsung may have used potentially misleading advertising and lacked transparency about the Game Optimization Service (GOS), there was insufficient evidence to prove that consumers suffered actual harm or that such harm was directly caused by the company’s actions.
The GOS, which Samsung made mandatory and non-removable in the 2022 Galaxy S22 series, is designed to prevent overheating by reducing GPU performance during high-intensity gaming, typically by lowering screen resolution and processing load.
Consumers filed the lawsuit in March 2022, arguing that the performance-restricting software was not disclosed prior to purchase, thereby causing a loss in expected device performance. Plaintiffs contended that the undisclosed feature amounted to deception and warranted compensation.
Samsung Electronics is embroiled in a legal dispute over allegations that it failed to disclose a game optimization service (GOS) that could limit the performance of devices in the Galaxy S22 series. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
However, the court found no legal basis to assert that Samsung had a duty—either under general principles of good faith or the Framework Act on Consumers—to explicitly notify buyers of the GOS policy at the point of sale. The judges concluded that the plaintiffs failed to prove either financial damage or a direct link between alleged losses and the company’s omission.
The case attracted widespread attention as one of the larger joint consumer lawsuits in South Korea’s tech sector, often referred to informally as a “class action” for the collective nature of its participants.
While the plaintiffs lost in this first-instance ruling, legal experts suggest the case could still have ripple effects on future consumer protection policy and digital product disclosures in South Korea’s mobile device market. An appeal is likely.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
