Labor Party Accuses Samsung of Accounting Fraud
By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter
A left-wing party accused high-ranking officials of the already scandal-ridden Samsung Group of committing accounting fraud.
The Democratic Labor Party (DLP) filed a lawsuit Friday against three executives including vice chairman Lee Hak-soo, 61, of the nation's largest conglomerate on charges of administering or overlooking a series of deceptive accounting practices in 1997, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said.
The three accused had served as auditors in 1997 of the then Samsung Motors, now Renault Samsung Motors.
Rep. Sim Sang-jeong of DLP alleged that the three had plotted to fix the motor company's account books in a bid to win a payment guarantee from Seoul Guarantee Insurance.
She also alleged the company received public funds worth 310 billion won that year by cooking its books.
The lawmaker said in 2005 that she had detected a series of deceptive accounting practices amounting to 312.4 billion won made by Samsung after examining reports issued by the Korea Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC).
``The prosecution should thoroughly investigate individuals involved in the book-cooking scandal to prevent similar cases from reoccurring in the future,'' the lawmaker said.
She also called on prosecutors to look into officials of KDIC, the Financial Supervisory Commission, and Seoul Guarantee Insurance, who are suspected of overlooking Samsung's wrongdoings.
Along with civic groups, the first-term lawmaker plans to ask the Financial Supervisory Service to launch an investigation into PricewaterhouseCoopers, the largest accounting firm in Korea that managed Samsung's account work, to verify whether the company performed its duty at that time.