The Fair Trade Commission filed a complaint with the prosecution against Kumho Petrochemical Chairman Park Chan-gu for concealing or omitting the submission of data held by his relatives.
The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on the 8th that it would file a complaint with the prosecution against Chairman Park for violating the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (Fair Trade Act).
According to the Fair Trade Commission, Chairman Park submitted false data omitting four companies from 2018 to 2021, including Gino Motors, Gino Trading, Jeongjin Logistics, and JS Pacific, in which his relatives (brother-in-law’s family) owned 100% of the shares.
On April 1, 2016, the corporate group ‘Kumho Petrochemical’ was newly designated as a business group subject to cross-investment restrictions. Afterwards, it was excluded from the designation on September 30, 2016, and was designated as a corporate group subject to disclosure from September 1, 2017 to the present.
Chairman Park omitted Gino Motors and Gino Trading, the companies owned by his first brother-in-law, when submitting designation data for 2018-2020.
Chairman Park omitted Jeongjin Logistics, a company owned by his second brother-in-law, from 2018 to 2021 and JS Pacific from the 2018 designation data.
Min Hye-young, head of the Business Group Policy Department, held a briefing at the Sejong Government Complex on the same day and said, “The first brother-in-law’s family owned 100% of the shares in Gino Motors and Gino Trading, and the second brother-in-law’s family owned 100% in Jungjin Logistics.” Even though it was easy to determine whether it was an affiliate, (Chairman Park) submitted the designation data omitting the company.”
“In particular, in the process of submitting designation data in 2021, after receiving a request from the Fair Trade Commission to confirm whether a relative company is an affiliate, Chairman Park concealed Jeongjin Logistics owned by his second brother-in-law even after internal review,” he emphasized.
ⓒ News1The Fair Trade Commission judged that the possibility of recognizing the false submission of the designated data was considerable, considering that Chairman Park received a direct report on the designated data and signed his personal seal and handwritten signature.
In addition, it was found that Chairman Park was aware of the missing four companies owned by his relatives for a long time, and that the company information held by his relatives was managed in the office of the chairman of Kumho Petrochemical, where Chairman Park served as the CEO.
The Fair Trade Commission also determined that the person in charge of submitting the designation data for Kumho Petrochemical recognized that the relatives had the four missing companies from the time of the first designation (2016).
In particular, as a result of the Fair Trade Commission’s investigation, some companies had an omission period of up to six years.
Manager Min pointed out, “It is beneficial not to be incorporated into an affiliate,” and pointed out, “If the affiliate is not incorporated, there is an aspect of not having to disclose even though it is a corporate group subject to disclosure, and not being subject to regulations on private profit taking.”
He added, “If you enter a large business group, you cannot receive various benefits because you are not recognized as a small business.
In particular, in the case of Gino Trading and Gino Motors, they produced and distributed water cannons during the mad cow disease crisis. It is analyzed that the possibility of damage to the group’s image in case these companies are incorporated into Kumho Petrochemical affiliates also had an impact.
Manager Min said, “It was a company that was mentioned a lot in the media at the time.”
He also said, “If the submission of data for one or two years had been omitted, in fact, there would have been no problem, and it would have been issued with a ‘warning’.” It was omitted for no reason, and it was seen as a problem in that it lasted for a very long time, not one or two years.”
(Sejong = News 1)
