Due the success of my last Ass-hat award post, I figure it was time for another when I saw this. Now I know the original Ass-hats were given due to writing by the same person. These were not all done by the same writer, but the line is such a big whopper it’s ass-hat worthy.
I present you with Cho Jin-seo writing in yesterdays Korea Times:
Even though the general public sentiment in South Korea is not always favorable to family-owned conglomerates, LG has rarely received criticism for its corporate governance…
Lets look at a selection of events chronicled in Cho’s own paper over the past few years:
Former information-communications minister Lee Suk-chae was arrested upon his return from the United States yesterday on charges of taking bribes from a local firm…Prosecutors arrested the ex-minister at the newly opened airport on allegations that he received 30 million ($22,000) won in bribes from LG Telecom in return for using his influence in helping the firm establish lucrative cellular phone services in 1996. - Korea Times, March 30, 2001
A total of 25 companies were punished for violating accounting standards and rules or engaging in audit fraud, in the first half of the year…The 25 companies included LG Industrial Systems Co…. - Korea Times, July 4, 2002
Conglomerates are in a state of shock following a prosecution raid on Tuesday on the head office of LG Home Shopping to confiscate financial documents…Prosecutors confiscated documents from the nation’s largest home shopping firm in order to verify allegations that the company raised slush funds to donate to political parties last year…About 30 executives of leading conglomerates, including LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo…have already been banned from traveling abroad until the investigations are completed. - Korea Times, November 18, 2003
LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo will be summoned next week on suspicion of funding presidential election campaigns late last year with slush money collected from the conglomerate’s lucrative home shopping arm, prosecutors said on Wednesday. - Korea Times, November 19, 2003
Forty-eight people were yesterday indicted on charges of bribery and other irregularities linked to the wholly-owned local subsidiary of U.S. Computer giant IBM Corp. and its joint venture LG IBM…The prosecution also requested the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) punish 15 computer manufacturers and distributors including LG Electronics and SK C & C for their involvement in the pre-arranged bidding to help IBM Korea and LG IBM to win the multi-billion-won contract. - Korea Times, January 4, 2004
The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office Saturday indicted LG Vice Chairman Kang Yu-sik for giving 15 billion won to the Grand National Party (GNP) prior to the 2002 presidential elections - Korea Times, March 11, 2004
Makes me wonder how Cho defines “rarely” in his sentence above.
2 Comments
He probably adopted Roh’s definition of “Rarely.” Remember the famous line, at the beginning of Roh’s
reign of terrorterm, “I’m not half as guilty as the other guy.” In Korean-speak, I suspect “Rarely” and “Less guilty” are synonyms………..It is a new year after all… maybe things drop off of Cho’s radar at the three year mark?