hankyoreh

The Samsung Group’s law compliance oversight committee holds its first meeting at the Samsung Seocho Town Life Insurance Tower in Seoul on Feb. 5. (Yonhap News)

On Feb. 5, the Samsung Group’s law compliance oversight committee held its first meeting, a marathon session lasting for six hours. But a press conference summarizing the results of the meeting didn’t mention recent criticism that Samsung has faced in Korean society about the deletion of labor union emails.

In a press statement issued after the meeting on Wednesday, the oversight committee said that it had settled on operating rules that allow it to be briefed about mergers, public offerings, and transactions made in the special relationship between group affiliates; to request related documents; and to voice its opinion about those matters.

“When we perceive that there’s a risk of the senior management of a group affiliate violating their compliance obligations, we can take measures such as having the affiliate’s compliance officer report that to the board of directors,” the committee said as it explained its prerogatives. If an affiliate ignores the committee’s request, it added, it can directly communicate its opinion to the board of directors, which has the authority to appoint or dismiss an affiliate’s compliance officers. And if the committee’s request is still ignored, it can post that information on its homepage.

The oversight committee had told the press about its meeting in advance and provided photographs of the meeting. This was the first meeting of the six external members on the committee — namely, chairperson Kim Ji-hyung, a former Supreme Court justice who is currently the managing attorney at the law firm Jipyong; Kwon Tae-seon, co-president of Civil Society Organizations Network in Korea; Ko Gye-hyeon, secretary-general of Citizens United for Consumer Sovereignty; Kim Woo-jin, business professor at Seoul National University; Bong Wook, an attorney and former assistant prosecutor-general at the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office; and Shim In-sook, a law professor at Chung-Ang University. Also present as Samsung’s representative on the committee was Lee In-yong, who was recently promoted to president of corporate relations in Samsung’s management reshuffle last month.

The meeting began at 3 pm at the office of Samsung Life Insurance, in Seoul’s Seocho neighborhood, and wrapped up at 9 pm. Most of this marathon meeting, which lasted for six hours without a break for dinner, was reportedly taken up by briefings by Samsung affiliates. Committee members also discussed the issue of Samsung’s suppression of labor unions, including the deletion of an email encouraging Samsung Electronics employees to join a labor union, but that wasn’t mentioned in the press release.

Hon. Chung Jun-yeong, head of the 1st Criminal Division at the Seoul High Court, will be holding a preparatory hearing on Feb. 14 during which he hopes to set up an expert panel to examine the oversight committee’s activities. Chung is currently reviewing a case against Samsung Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong that was remanded by the Supreme Court.

Chung has said he’ll take the committee’s activities into account when determining Lee’s punishment and has recommended Kang Il-won, former justice on the Constitutional Court, to serve on the expert panel. Samsung has accepted the panel proposal and recommended that Kim Gyeong-su, a former senior prosecutor, sit on the panel. But the team of special prosecutors are opposed to setting up an expert panel, which they say isn’t called for either procedurally or by the facts of the case.

Last year, South Korea’s Supreme Court found Lee guilty of embezzling company money and giving bribes and described criminal behavior involving a quid pro quo designed to help Lee inherit management rights of the Samsung Group. The Supreme Court’s ruling in the case made it more likely that Lee will face actual prison time after the lower court reviews his case. But Samsung’s embrace of the court’s promise to consider extenuating circumstances throws the trial’s outcome into doubt.

“If the court seizes upon the oversight committee as a pretext for extending clemency to Lee Jae-yong, it will mean that the judiciary is being subverted once again by its unseemly ties with big business,” said a joint statement by 43 lawmakers with ruling and opposition parties and NGOs such as Solidarity for Economic Reform and MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society.

What does the committee think about criticism that it’s being exploited by Samsung to ensure that Lee, the group owner, receives a lighter sentence? When asked that question on Wednesday, a committee member reiterated that “sentencing isn’t one of the issues we’re dealing with.” The oversight committee’s next meeting will be held on Feb. 13, the day before the preparatory hearing in Lee’s trial.

By Song Gyung-hwa and Song Chae Kyung-wha, staff reporters

Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]