The sons of Lotte Group founder Shin Kyuk-ho on Wednesday clashed in the first round of their legal battle over which of them will take over the 90 trillion won ($80 billion) business empire.

The attorneys of SDJ Corp. chairman and Shin’s eldest son Dong-joo claimed that the Lotte chairman, his youngest son Dong-bin, inflicted more than 1 trillion won in losses from his business operations in China and tried to conceal it.

But Dong-bin’s litigators struck back, labeling the allegations as a malicious act that put Lotte in danger.

The court hearing opened at the Seoul Central District Court to review Dong-joo and his father’s filing of an injunction against Lotte Shopping to review the company’s fiscal records.

While the current act allows shareholders with more than 3 percent to view the accounts, the company can refuse such requests in special circumstances.

Because Dong-joo has filed two lawsuits and more to come against Dong-bin and his aides for kicking him out of the Lotte apex, securing evidence of the alleged malpractice is essential for future litigations.

“Shin Dong-joo is a 13.45 percent holder of Lotte Shopping and will continue to fight for the stakeholders’ rights and set the records straight in the company,” an attorney for Dong-joo said.

Although neither Dong-joo nor Dong-bin showed up at the courtroom, the judge decided to proceed with the case and hold the second hearing on Dec. 2.

“Outside influence should not be allowed to shake up Lotte during this critical stage of its business,” Lotte Group’s lawyers said.

Meanwhile, under Dong-bin, Lotte is busy weakening the Japanese holding company’s influence in the company.

The ultimate goal is to list Hotel Lotte on the local bourse in order to dilute Lotte Japan’s shares: Currently, Kojyunsya led by Dong-joo owns 5.5 percent of Hotel Lotte, while Lotte Holdings and its affiliates own 91.8 percent of it, showing that the de facto holding company of Lotte Korea is heavily dependent on Japanese companies. If Dong-joo seizes control of Lotte Japan, Dong-bin’s options will be extremely limited, onlookers say.

As a start, Lotte Data Communication, the conglomerate’s information technology service unit, on Tuesday applied for a preliminary listing on the Korea Exchange. The company, established in 1996, posted 560 billion won in sales with an operating profit of 35.8 billion won last year.

Hotel Lotte on the same day acquired 12 percent of Lotte Aluminum from Lotte Shopping, 3.5 percent of Daehong Communications from Fuji Film Korea, and 0.9 percent of Fuji Film Korea from Lotte Confectionery, and paved the way for Hotel Lotte to become the virtual holding company of Lotte Korea. Such ownership has constituted a large, complicated circular shareholding structure at Lotte, in which there were 416 such investments in early 2015.

“This is part of chairman Shin Dong-bin’s pledge to dissolve more than 80 percent of the cross-shareholding structures at Lotte Group,” a Lotte spokesman said. “Shin has been devoted to his promise and the Tuesday purchase has brought down the number of cyclical shareholding structures to 67, meaning 83.9 percent are gone now,” he said.

Industrial pundits say that Dong-bin’s swift move is to secure public approval as a professional manager rather than a blood-tied heir.

“The public is sick of listening to the tantrum and is frustrated by the fact that just because the brothers have a wealthy father they are fighting over a 90 trillion won company. Dong-bin wants to show that he is talented enough to run the business,” he added.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)