Taiwan's electronics giant BenQ Corp Wednesday rejected lawsuits by the insolvency administrator of BenQ Mobile seeking million-dollar payments BenQ allegedly owes BenQ Mobile, according to dpa. "BenQ was informed that Martin Prager, the insolvency administrator of BenQ Mobile, has filed two lawsuits against BenQ in a Munich court, claiming payments of about 1.2 million euros (1.5 million US dollars) and about 68.9 million euros (89.5 million US dollars) respectively, BenQ said in a statement. "The lawsuits arose from certain account payables made by BenQ Mobile to BenQ in 2006. BenQ believes the payments were paid as ordinary payments for goods sold. BenQ is questioning whether BenQ Mobile has a legal basis to make the claim and has retained legal counsel to handle the litigations. It is the preliminary assessment of counsel that the evidence put forward by Mr Prager to support the lawsuits appears to be relatively weak," it said. "BenQ reserves the right to hold the IA of BenQ Mobile accountable for any action taken or statement made without legal basis which damages the goodwill and interests of BenQ," it said. The statement said that the spin-off of BenQ's branding business from its OEM business was proceeding smoothly, and the litigation would not have an impact on BenQ's finances. BenQ made international headlines when it bought the loss-making cellphone unit of Siemens in 2005 to form BenQ Mobile to design the Siemens-Ben line of cell phones. Siemens allowed BenQ to use its brand to make cellphones for five years. But in September 2006, BenQ stopped investing in BenQ Mobile, citing losses of 840 million euros (1.1 billion US dollars) on delays in new models, causing BenQ Mobile to file for bankruptcy and throwing its 3,000 staff out of work. On March 21, 2007, 4,350 creditors of Benq Mobile met in Munich to prepare to claim 1.2 billion euros (1.6 billion dollars) in compensation from BenQ. Creditors include BenQ Mobile employees and Brazilian soccer star Ronaldo, who appeared in a 2005 TV commercial promoting BenQ Mobile. BenQ denied that it had any responsibility to the overseas creditors.
