Top-30 Business Groups Hit with Penalties over 2 Tril. Won…CEO Score

The No. 1 company in this ranking was LG Group with 759.9 billion won fines in 29 cases, accounting for 37.6 percent in total.(image: Adam_T4/flickr)

SEOUL, May 22 (Korea Bizwire) – A study said the total amount of penalties and punitive charges imposed on Korea’s top-30 business groups for the past three years surpassed 2 trillion won. By amount, LG Group topped the list with almost 40 percent in the total. In terms of the number of cases, Samsung Group was ranked No. 1 with 51 cases.

The number of groups whose penalty volume is in excess of 100 billion won was five including SK Group, Hyosung Group, Hyundai Motor, and KT. The Fair Trade Commission and the Financial Supervisory Commission accounted for as many as 60 percent of the cases.

According to a report by CEO Score, a website tracking financial performance of the nation’s corporations, on May 21, based on a survey on sanctions from authorities in Korea and elsewhere on the top-30 business groups from 2011 to 2013, the total amount of penalties and punitive charges was 2,020.8 billion won in 309 cases.

The No. 1 company in this ranking was LG Group with 759.9 billion won fines in 29 cases, accounting for 37.6 percent in total. It was largely because of the pending 700 billion won fine imposed on LG Electronics by the European Commission in late 2012 on alleged cartel charges among TV and computer monitor tube producers. In addition, LG Uplus was hit with a punitive charge of 50 billion won for paying illegal subsidies to its handset customers.

The No. 2 company on the list was Hyosung Group, which was imposed with 370 billion won in penalties (in 12 cases) due to investigations by the National Tax Service last year.

SK Group was ranked third with 323 billion won in fines (46 cases). The group’s holding company and SK Innovation were hit with 50 billion won and 76 billion won penalties, respectively, for colluding in deciding on gas station locations.

For this case SK Group won the appeals court case in August last year, but the Fair Trade Commission appealed the case to the highest court. SK Telecom was also imposed fines of 150 billion won from the Fair Trade Commission related to handset subsidies.

The No. 4 and 5 companies were KT and Hyundai Motor with 130 billion won (4 cases) and 100 billion won (23 cases) in penalty charges. Other top-ten companies included Samsung (95.5 billion won, 51 cases), Dongbu (39.9 billion won, 14 cases), Dongkuk Steel (32.6 billion won, 2 cases), POSCO (26.4 billion won, 3 cases), and Daelim Industrial (26.3 billion won, 10 cases).

Written by Sean Chung (schung10@koreabizwire.com)

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