The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) will file report against Chairman Cho Yang-ho to the prosecution after revealing false data submitted by Hanjin Group.
The FTC announced on August 13th that it decided to report Chairman Cho for omitting to report its four affiliates as well as the names of 62 family members.
According to the FTC, Hanjin Group did not report the four companies as affiliates from 2014 to 2018.
However, the four companies were found to have 60 to 100 percent of shares in the group, which means the four companies were operating as disguised affiliates. Furthermore, Hanjin Group also submitted data that was omitted about the 62 family members.
The FTC stated that Hanjin Group submitted the missing data that was omitted for up to 15 years and decided to file a report against Chairman Cho because he was aware of such omissions from the start. The company also considered that the four affiliates were consistently exempted from corporate restraint regulations and disclosure obligations due to the omission of data, and that they benefited unfairly from small and medium-sized companies.
“We expect that this will be chance for the business community to ease the submission of designated data by imposing strict sanctions on affiliates and relatives who undermine the basis of the economic power-sharing policy,” said an FTC official.
Hanjin Group responded on August 13th by saying, “it was merely an administrative error that had no reason to be hidden or deliberated.”
The company explained, “it is true that some relative and related companies, including 6 relatives and 4 relatives-in-law, were missing, but they were not deliberate.”
“The administrative officer failed to understand that some contents were missing due to insufficient understanding of the related Fair Trade Act,” said an official of Hanjin Group.
