WorldCom’s bankruptcy struck “Asian tigers”

Samsung, LG and Hyundai are accused of financial artifice

A wave of public disclosures connected with financial machinations of large corporations has reached South Korea. The South Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) will hold an investigation of the largest corporations concerning unfair business practices.

As is known, the South Korean economy is based mostly upon conglomerates (or choboli, as Koreans call them themselves) of companies covering all business spheres, from the food industry to ship-building. The FTC is going to focus its attention on the following famous companies: Samsung, LG , SK, Hyundai Motor, Hyundai Heavy Industries, and Hyundai Group.

A statement issued by FTC reads “We want to examine the activity of the companies, because information about illegal transactions between subdivisions of the large corporations has been recently published. The FTC will inspect 80 companies, all subdivisions of the six “chobolis” in question.”

The companies themselves object against any investigations and say that any inspections are politically motivated on the threshold of coming elections. However, the protests will hardly stop the investigation.

Vasily Bubnov PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Maria Gousseva

Read the original in Russian: http://www.pravda.ru/main/2002/07/25/44681.html

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