Korea is corrupt from top down in all aspects of life. Not only Sam Sung all the corporations that I know ,, from former presidents down to village chiefs ,, police heads down to ward officials who takes favours for leniency tor granting building permits. Managements who takes in cash briberies or sexual favours for contracts. Simply put,,it is our way of life since confuscious was introduced to this penninsula. School teachers are given monthly stipend from parents,, if not kid does not get the exposure of love and attention from elementary school up. Elementary kids when they meet compare the size of their apartment or the area which they live in ,, not the fun stuff kids are supposed to be dreaming of,, they ostracise kids with, who does not meet their economic standard ,, on and on.
Every corporation that has set up overseas offices since 1970's always double invoiced Korea head office keeping the margin for the benefit of the owners. Dae Woo former chairman Kim, who now is in jail for defraudng some 600 million USD still ownes couple of pent house at the Trump Tower on first Ave. and 45th. He also owns a villa in Nice, France,, where I used run into him at my golf course, while he was a wanted man by the interpol ,, and his two kids live well in New Jersey ,,
Religious leaders not exampt.. list of their cases goes on for a mile.
All this corruption cost out GDP by at least 20% or more.
We need a cultural revolution ,, purge of confuscian doctrine in our blood or enlightening of due process... this is why admire USA,, you had your fill of bad cops,,bad politiicians and rail road barrons and done away with them earlier than most of the developed societies.
Yun-Soo PARK, Seoul, Korea
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Dark Days For The Empire
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But the Lees' biggest problem isn't legal—it's financial. Forbes estimates their net worth at $4.3 billion—a sum far too meager to comfortably control 15 percent of the South Korean economy. Like other family conglomerates in Asia, Samsung is held together thru a multitude of cross-shareholdings in what John Ward, a family-enterprise expert at the Kellogg School of Management in Chicago, calls a "pyramid structure."
Poor transparency within Korea Inc. has historically meant that shares in Seoul traded at lower multiples—a phenomenon known as the "Korea discount." Even today, the average Korean share has a price-earnings ratio of just 12, compared with 16 in Tokyo and around 16 in New York. The discount is a legacy of the old chaebol structure that all groups but Samsung have abandoned. "In the short term, the Samsung scandal will adversely affect the Korean economy [because] investors are disappointed by slow progress in Korea's corporate reform," says Kim Seung Hyun, an economist at Woori Investment Securities. "But in the long run, this can be an opportunity for [Samsung's manufacturing and financial sides] to be reborn as clean and transparent companies."
Whether that split actually transpires remains to be seen. Much hinges on how aggressively the prosecutor President Roh must appoint by late December seeks to confirm Kim's allegations. Still more could rest on the outcome of the presidential race. Front-runner Lee Myung Bank, a conservative former Hyundai executive, is seen as less likely to push for radical corporate reform than his left-of-center rivals.
Samsung insists Kim's claims represent "nothing more than the repetition of false, distorted and exaggerated claims," as it said in a statement issued last week. Investors fear otherwise. Shares in listed Samsung affiliates plunged more than 3 percent the day the investigation was announced, shaving more than $5 billion off the group's net worth. "We are unfazed," Samsung Electronics' head of investor relations, Chu Woo-sik, said during a forum for analysts the next day. "Truth will prevail." The question is whether Samsung or the whistleblower will stand on the right side of it.
© 2007
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