Samsung is now being investigated for false advertising in Taiwan.

Fair-trade officials in Taiwan are looking into reports that Samsung paid people to criticise rival HTC online.

Samsung is alleged to have hired students to post negative comments about phones made by Taiwan's HTC.

Samsung, based in South Korea, said the "unfortunate incident" had gone against the company's "fundamental principles".

If found guilty of engaging in "false advertising", Samsung and its local agent could face fines of up to of 25m Taiwanese dollars (£547,000).

A local website had published documents appearing to show Samsung had been recruiting students to criticise HTC and praise Samsung anonymously on the web.

Samsung Taiwan said it had not been told about the investigation, however the subsidiary put a statement on its local Facebook page saying it had "ceased all marketing activities that involve the posting of anonymous comments". It said all future marketing work would be more in line with its company philosophy of transparency and honesty.

"The recent incident was unfortunate, and occurred due to insufficient understanding of these fundamental principles," it said, adding that it was planning training for employees to ensure events were not repeated.

In early 2013, Samsung was fined by Taiwanese authorities for an advert that misled consumers about the camera on the Galaxy Y Duo.

Source: BBC, PC Advisor

Samsung fined $900 after fatal gas leak.

The gas leak reportedly occurred sometime on Sunday at a Samsung facility south of Seoul, Korea. Several hours later, Samsung contacted a maintenance company to clean up the leak. Five crew members arrived on the scene and started to clean up the spill. However, one of the individuals, who was reportedly not wearing a full hazmat suit, died due to exposure. Four other individuals who were wearing their full protective gear were sent to a hospital, but fully recovered, according to reports.

Investigators have determined that Samsung took too long to alert law enforcement to the spill, and the company has been assessed a fine of up to 1 million Korean won (about $900) - Yonhap News, citing sources within the police office assessing the fine.

Samsung has remained tight-lipped on the leak, but reportedly told Yonhap in a statement on Monday that it believed the leak was "minimal."

Source: CNET