Who shall be grilled at this yr's Nationwide Meeting audit?

By Lee Kyung-min

A lot of trade leaders in addition to figures central to a slew of scandals of nice public curiosity will testify on the Nationwide Meeting audit beginning subsequent week.

Included shall be heads of monetary teams, e-commerce corporations, leisure companies, associates of tech titans in addition to a zinc smelting agency and a non-public fairness agency.

Monetary leaders

Woori Monetary Group Chairman Yim Jong-yong and NH NongHyup Financial institution CEO Lee Seok-yong will seem earlier than the Nationwide Coverage Committee over repeated instances of worker misconduct and questionable lending practices.

Yim shall be grilled over suspicions that kin of former group Chairman Son Tae-seung have been granted a complete of 35 billion received ($26 million) in poorly evaluated loans between April 2022 and Jan. 16.

The Monetary Supervisory Service (FSS) stated the remaining excellent steadiness of the mortgage got here to 30.4 billion received as of July 19. Over 88 %, or 26.9 billion received, is backed by collateral however is non-performing. As much as 15.8 billion received shall be unrecoverable, in line with Woori Financial institution.

An absence of inside management recognized as a reason behind the long-overlooked lending practices will prohibit the holding agency’s funding to its subsidiaries.

Lee shall be below scrutiny over NH NongHyup Financial institution’s 4 cases of monetary misconduct.

Included are 10.9 billion received in improperly granted loans in February based mostly on falsified gross sales contracts. In Might, the financial institution incurred 5.3 billion received in losses because of the official doc forgery and breach of belief. It additionally reported 1.1 billion received in losses referring to loans granted to made-up house consumers that the financial institution staff created.

Qoo10

Qoo10 head Ku Younger-bae will seem earlier than the Nationwide Coverage Committee over the settlement failure fiasco that started in July.

The Singapore-based agency operates WeMakePrice and TMON, two beleaguered e-commerce corporations utilized by small native retailers.

The agency’s overextended international growth drive regardless of questionable monetary profiles of its subsidiaries fueled considerations that dangers of a sequence of defaults throughout the better monetary market will proceed to intensify.

Weeks of continued debacles prompted the FSS to pledge its fortified cooperation to restrict the scope of client hurt and the transaction intermediaries, together with card and cost corporations in addition to the tourism trade.

The Honest Commerce Fee has since established a client criticism response workforce to help shoppers in search of treatment in civil court docket.

Kakao Pay

Kakao Pay CEO Shin Gained-keun will seem earlier than the Nationwide Coverage Committee over allegations that the agency handed over information on 40 million customers to its second-largest shareholder, Alipay Singapore Holdings, with out consent from its customers.

The holding firm with over a 32 % stake in Kakao Pay is an affiliate of Alipay, tied to China’s Ant Group. Kakao Pay is the settlement and cost subsidiary of the beleaguered Kakao Corp.

The Kakao subsidiary maintains the information was handed over to supply Apple App Retailer cost companies to Kakao Pay customers, as mediated legitimately by Alipay.

Nevertheless, the legislation governing the use and safety of credit score info requires person consent earlier than accumulating their information or offering it to a 3rd occasion. Consent was wanted as a result of Alipay is an abroad entity.

Younger Poong, Korea Zinc and MBK

Korea Zinc Chairman Choi Yun-beom, Younger Poong adviser Chang Hyung-jin and MBK Companions founder and Chairman Kim Byung-ju will seem earlier than the Commerce, Trade, Power, SMEs, and Startups Committee.

They are going to be grilled over the continuing tender supply for the shares of Korea Zinc and its key affiliate Younger Poong Precision, engineered collectively by Chang and the non-public fairness agency.

Younger Poong adviser Chang initiated the buyout, Sept. 12, to take management of Korea Zinc, enraged by zinc smelter Chairman Choi’s two-year efforts to extend stakes within the agency in a transfer to cement independence from Chang.

Mercedes-Benz Korea

Mercedes-Benz Korea President and CEO Mathias Vaitl will seem earlier than the Land Infrastructure and Transport Committee over a catastrophic fireplace attributable to its EQE electrical car (EV) in August.

The fireplace occurred in an condominium complicated parking storage in Incheon, destroying over 40 autos and damaging a whole bunch of others.

The German luxurious carmaker’s lack of well timed countermeasures drew heated criticism.

The EQE sedan was geared up with a battery manufactured by China’s Farasis Power as a substitute of what was initially believed to be the world’s prime battery maker CATL.

NewJeans

NewJeans member Hanni will seem earlier than the Surroundings and Labor Committee over alleged office bullying.

The looks adopted a criticism filed by New Denims’ followers with the Ministry of Employment and Labor, with claims of office harassment.

Their transfer was prompted by Hanni’s accusation made throughout a YouTube dwell broadcast final month that her try to say howdy to idol group members and their supervisor employed by HYBE was met with a dismissive “Simply ignore her.”

Okay-pop powerhouse HYBE and its subsidiary Ador is in an prolonged feud over the disputed substitute of Ador CEO Min Hee-jin, the producer of NewJeans.

Min says she was wrongfully dismissed, whereas HYBE says it was a lawful process.

Coupang

Coupang CEO Kang Han-seung will seem earlier than the Commerce, Trade, Power, SMEs, and Startups Committee over alleged preferential therapy for the agency’s non-public model merchandise.

The CEO will seem earlier than the Surroundings and Labor Committee, in addition to the Agriculture, Meals, Rural Affairs, Oceans, and Fisheries Committee and the Well being and Welfare Committee. Whether or not he shall be referred to as for the Nationwide Coverage Committee stays to be seen.