hankyoreh

Moon Hyung-pyo

A South Korean court has sentenced Moon Hyung-pyo, former Minister of Health and Welfare, and Hong Wan-seon, director of the operations department of the National Pension Service (NPS), to two years and six months in prison. Moon was charged with putting pressure on the NPS to support the merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, and Hong was charged with having carried out that plan.

Moon, who had been at liberty during his trial, was taken into custody on June 8 on the order of Cho Ui-yeon, presiding judge at the 21st criminal division at the Seoul Central District Court. “Moon likely deserves criticism for causing harm by putting pressure on the National Pension Fund,” Cho said. In light of the enormity of the crime of damaging the public’s retirement fund in order to satisfy the greed of the owner of the country’s largest chaebol, this sentence, if anything, may not be harsh enough.

This verdict is significant not only as the first example of corrupt and incompetent bureaucrats being punished for their complicity in Park Geun-hye and Choi Sun-sil’s government interference, but also as the first time a court has officially acknowledged the illegality of the Samsung merger. Moon was arrested and indicted on charges of abuse of power for ordering the head of the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s pension policy bureau to interfere with the NPS’s decision-making in June 2015 after receiving a directive to improve the merger from then-Blue House Senior Secretary to the President for Economic Affairs Ahn Jong-beom, who was himself acting on orders from Park.

While the court did not make any determination on whether there had indeed been orders from the Blue House, it did view Moon’s involvement in the voting as abuse of power, including his telling subordinates he “hope[d] the Samsung merger goes ahead.” It also took a stern view of his role in “causing losses to the fund despite being a pension expert himself.”

The ruling is also drawing attention for the impact it may have on Park and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s trials on bribery charges. One of the 18 charges leveled against Park was receiving 43.3 billion won (US$38.6 million) in bribes (including the contract amount) for three areas - one of which was equestrian training for Choi’s daughter Jung Yu-ra - after an improper request for help with the transfer of management rights at Samsung, which included the merger. It’s a case where there were three phases: Lee’s request, Park’s orders, and the actual misdeed. With this ruling, the end result - the improper action by the NPS - was affirmed by the court. This, plus testimony from former Senior Secretary to the President for Employment and Welfare Affairs Choi Won-young that Park “gave orders to see to the NPS’s exercise of decision authority,” just increases the chances of the Blue House’s pressure tactics being acknowledged by the court.

Hopefully, this ruling will result in a thorough revelation of the truth and stern punishments in Park and Lee’s trials as well.

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