Lee Jae-yong Lawsuit: National Pension’s Billion-Dollar Blunder – A Compensation Conundrum

◀ Anchor ▶

You may remember the suspicion of the ‘unfair merger’ between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, which was revealed as a key link of collusion between the Park Geun-hye administration and the Samsung family during the government corruption scandal.

The National Pension Service, which was Samsung C&T’s largest shareholder at the time, filed a lawsuit against Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and others, claiming it had suffered damages from the merger.

Suddenly, I filed a lawsuit for damages.

The late timing of the lawsuit is also a problem, but there is high criticism that they rushed to file a complaint without even knowing how much damage was being done to people’s retirement funds.

This is reporter Soohan Yoon.

◀ Report ▶

Two years ago former Health and Welfare Minister Moon Hyeong-pyo and others were found guilty in connection with the state affairs scandal during the Park Geun-hye administration.

He was admitted to the charge of pressuring the National Pension Service to agree to the merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.

In 2019, the Supreme Court also accepted that Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, the biggest beneficiary of the merger, had given a bribe to Park Geun-hye’s government at the time.

The National Pension Service, Samsung C&T’s largest shareholder, whose stock value had been undervalued during the merger, did not seek to recover the damage.

As the right to demand compensation approaches the point of extinction, the National Pension Service recently filed a lawsuit for damages against Samsung Chairman Lee Jae-yong and others.

[진영주/보건복지부 연금정책관 (어제)]

“I would like to inform you that the National Pension Service has filed legal proceedings because the statute of limitations is due to expire in December this year.”

The amount listed by the corporation as the value of the lawsuit is only 501 million earned.

The amount of damage is 138.7 billion won, previously calculated by the special prosecutor for government corruption, but it is not even a hair’s breadth of the amount of damage estimated by civic groups in the hundreds of billions of winning.

[진영주/보건복지부 연금정책관 (어제)]

“Because 501 million earned is the minimum litigation cost that can be negotiated at a lower level…”

The National Pension Service said it would listen to the opinion of experts in court to determine the amount of damage.

However, some point out that precise accounting results should have been released earlier to determine the extent of damage to people’s retirement funds.

[김은정/참여연대 사무처장]

“A plan and a clear position should be provided to the public, ‘How much loss has been suffered and how will the national pension be compensated for this?'”

Like the National Pension Service, American funds that were shareholders of Samsung C&T have already received compensation worth 100 billion won by the Korean government through an international investment dispute lawsuit.

If this continues, citizens will have to bear the government’s liability for compensation through taxes as well as the loss of the national pension fund.

This is Suhan Yoon from MBC News.

Video Editing: Park Byeong-geun

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