The Hyundai Motor boss avoided going to jail yesterday when a South Korean court upheld his suspended prison sentence but it ordered him to undertake tougher community service involving physical labor.
Chung Mong-koo, who prosecutors had accused of raising a slush fund to bribe government officials, politicians and bankers in return for business favors, was given a suspended three-year jail sentence, an appeal court confirmed.
The court also ordered Chung to undertake 300 hours of public service involving manual work for charities or protection of the environment after an earlier order had been seen as too soft.
PHOTO: AFP
South Korean judges have a long record of imposing lenient punishments on chaebol — giant family-run conglomerates — bosses and other prominent white-collar criminals.
Chung, 69, was sentenced to three years in prison in February last year for breach of trust and embezzling 90 billion won (US$87.4 million) in company funds through fraudulent accounting.
An appeal court, however, quashed the prison term and replaced it with a three-year suspended sentence, saying his imprisonment would badly damage South Korea’s economy.
Chung had also been ordered to give lectures and write articles in the local media on business ethics — and to make good on his pledge to donate 840 billion won to charity.a
Prosecutors appealed, saying previous service orders involved physical labor.
In April, the Supreme Court ordered the lower court to reconsider its sentence saying lecturing or writing articles was not tantamount to labor as described in the criminal code.
“The defendant’s [crime] was extenuated by the fact that he had tried to address wrong practices and pledged to donate 840 billion won to society,” appeal court judge Kil Ki-bong said in his new ruling yesterday.
Hyundai Motor welcomed the court’s decision, which came two years after its boss was arrested. Chung remained free pending the new ruling.
“We are greatly relieved that this case is finally over. We can now focus all our energies on making the group a global leader,” it said in a statement.
The Hyundai group, including affiliate Kia Motors, controls 70 percent of the country’s auto market and accounts for 5.4 percent of GDP.
Chung, who had admitted the existence of the slush fund but said he was not directly involved in embezzlement, is aiming to make it the world’s No. 5 carmaker, from No. 6 currently.
His lawyers said the fund was spent helping improve the productivity and morale of employees and expanding sales networks, as well as for making donations to politicians.
NATIONAL SECURITY THREAT: An official said that Guan Guan’s comments had gone beyond the threshold of free speech, as she advocated for the destruction of the ROC China-born media influencer Guan Guan’s (關關) residency permit has been revoked for repeatedly posting pro-China content that threatens national security, the National Immigration Agency said yesterday. Guan Guan has said many controversial things in her videos posted to Douyin (抖音), including “the red flag will soon be painted all over Taiwan” and “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China,” while expressing hope for expedited “reunification.” The agency received multiple reports alleging that Guan Guan had advocated for armed reunification last year. After investigating, the agency last month issued a notice requiring her to appear and account for her actions. Guan Guan appeared as required,
A strong cold air mass is expected to arrive tonight, bringing a change in weather and a drop in temperature, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The coldest time would be early on Thursday morning, with temperatures in some areas dipping as low as 8°C, it said. Daytime highs yesterday were 22°C to 24°C in northern and eastern Taiwan, and about 25°C to 28°C in the central and southern regions, it said. However, nighttime lows would dip to about 15°C to 16°C in central and northern Taiwan as well as the northeast, and 17°C to 19°C elsewhere, it said. Tropical Storm Nokaen, currently
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
PAPERS, PLEASE: The gang exploited the high value of the passports, selling them at inflated prices to Chinese buyers, who would treat them as ‘invisibility cloaks’ The Yilan District Court has handed four members of a syndicate prison terms ranging from one year and two months to two years and two months for their involvement in a scheme to purchase Taiwanese passports and resell them abroad at a massive markup. A Chinese human smuggling syndicate purchased Taiwanese passports through local criminal networks, exploiting the passports’ visa-free travel privileges to turn a profit of more than 20 times the original price, the court said. Such criminal organizations enable people to impersonate Taiwanese when entering and exiting Taiwan and other countries, undermining social order and the credibility of the nation’s
RSS