Korean courts come down hard on chaebol-controlling families

December 31, 2013 Leave a comment

Courts come down hard on chaebol-controlling families

Dec 31,2013

In the aftermath of “economic democratization” pledges by major candidates in last year’s presidential election, owners of chaebol – once practically immune from going to jail thanks to their “contribution to the national economy” regardless of their violations – realized in 2013 that they are no longer safe from spending time behind bars. At SK Group, the country’s third-largest conglomerate, Chairman Chey Tae-won was handed a four-year jail term for embezzlement. And Chey’s younger brother, Jae-won, vice chairman of the group, was taken to prison straight from the courtroom in September after receiving a sentence of three and a half years. The Chey brothers were charged with embezzling 46.5 billion won ($44 million) in group funds. Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-yeon, 61, is serving a three-year prison term. With his case back in the appellate court, he has been temporarily released due to ill health. Lee Jay-hyun, chairman of CJ Group, also was placed behind bars in July after he was indicted on charges of massive tax evasion and embezzlement. Lee is standing trial with his confinement suspended because of poor health. Other executives in court custody are Lee Ho-jin, former Taekwang Group chairman, and his mother, Lee Seon-ae, former executive director of Taekwang Group; Koo Cha-won, LIG Group chairman; and Koo Bon-sang, vice chairman of LIG Nex1.

Filed under Macro Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment