Kakao CFO sanctioned for buying $75,000 in game items using corporate card

Kakao logo / Newsis

By Anna J. Park

Kakao imposed a three-month suspension on the company's Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Kim Ki-hong for purchasing around 100 million won ($75,000) worth of game items using his corporate credit card.

According to IT industry sources earlier this week, Kakao informed its employees the results of an ethics committee's review of the case. The ethics committee said it began investigating the case after it received tipoffs on the CFO's inappropriate use of his corporate card.

After meeting several times, the ethics committee, composed of employees from various positions and age groups, concluded that the amount the CFO spent on game items was excessive, although payments on content developed by Kakao subsidiaries are an allowable expense with the firm's corporate credit cards.

The committee also investigated whether there were attempts to exchange the purchased game items for cash. But that issue hasn't yet been confirmed. Kakao officials say the money spent on the items will be retrieved.

“The amount of the problematic expense of the corporate card will be reimbursed. As a result of the case, Kakao plans to establish clearer guidelines and limits for the use of corporate cards,” a Kakao official said.

The game from which the CFO purchased 100 million won worth of items turned out to be “Odin,” a mobile massive multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Kakao Games.

Some employees of the company are said to have complained that the three-month suspension is too lenient of a penalty for the executive, considering Kakao stocks' weak performances and ongoing intense restructuring efforts within the firm to ameliorate its profitability.