Prosecutors to Investigate into Donations by SK and Lotte

The South Korean Public Prosecutor's Office included allegations of bribery regarding the Samsung Group in the arrest warrant it requested against former President Park Geun-hye. The office is planning to investigate the other Korean conglomerates that have transferred their money to the MIR and K-Sports Foundations as well so that more bribery allegations can be added to the arrest warrant.

The examples include SK. It give 11.1 billion won to the two foundations and the K-Sports Foundation demanded extra eight billion won after the private meeting between the former President and SK Group chairman Chey Tae-Won in February last year. According to the office, the donation has to do with the special pardon given to the chairman on August 14, 2015.

Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin is about to be summoned by the prosecution, which recently investigated some Lotte executives such as Lotte Duty Free president Jang Seon-wook. The Lotte Group lost its rights to run the duty free shop in the Lotte World Tower in 2015 and regained the rights last year, when the Korea Customs Service allowed duty free shops to be run by a larger number of companies than before. At that time, Lotte gave the foundations 11.5 billion won.

In the meantime, the rest of major business groups and their subsidiary companies are likely to be acquitted and regarded as victims. These consist of 16 groups’ 53 companies.