One by one, senior managers of the Hyundai group, South Korea's largest family-owned conglomerate, or chaebol, appeared in the Seoul district prosecutor's office this week. Chung Mong Hun, chairman of Hyundai Electronics and son of Chung Ju Yung, the Hyundai group's semi-retired founder, will be next. They were being questioned about their involvement in the manipulation of share prices of several Hyundai subsidiaries, including Hyundai Electronics. Embarrassing for Hyundai though all this is, these court appearances are part of a broader, more disturbing tale: that the big chaebol have been grabbing ever larger parts of the country's financial-services industry in order to channel money—illegally—to loss-making subsidiaries.
展开▼
