Hyundai Hit With $10M Verdict

Electronic News, April 26, 1999

An Orange County, Calif. jury on Friday found Hyundai Semiconductor violated the state's Unruh Act, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of association. After deliberating for a day and a half, the jury awarded $10 million to Technical Resources Inc., a Huntington Beach, Calif. search firm which filed a complaint in Superior Court in May 1997.

According to Jeff Abraham, president, he was retained by Korea-based Hyundai to find managers for its new wafer fab in Eugene, Ore., but a human relations manager at Hyundai instructed him not to include women or African-Americans among the candidates. When he objected to that restriction, he was terminated, Abraham said. "It was very important to me to get this on the record that this happened, and was wrong," he said after the verdict. It couldn't be learned by press time whether Hyundai planned to appeal.