Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut: HYUNDAI EXEC SCOOTS FROM USA AFTER DEADLY FREEWAY CRASH; HIS BOSS BUYING FREEDOM IN SOUTH KOREA FOR $1.1 BILLION; TOP EXEC'S SON COMMITTED SUICIDE IN 2003

A sad, sad tale ... For decades now, top-level and middle-management level executives from Asian car companies have lived in southern California. Very often they live in homes owned by the company they work for, and their stay is often limited to less than five years, because, as parent company officials will say, off-the-record, they do not want their executives to become "too Americanized". Almost in all cases, the executives are married men with families. The Asian style of doing business, which includes long working hours (with the Asian staff sometimes coming to the office in the late afternoon to be able to communicate with their foreign overseas home offices during the Japanese or Korean work day), as well as these employees staying out for late-night "work" sessions with their upper managers (which often are nothing more than drinking binges several nights a week), eats into their family life in the US just as it does in their own home countries. Very often the wives and children of these executives join private clubs which are made-up of people in similar circumstance, where they can feel comfortable and speak their home language among their own people. Though their children go to American schools, they also often go to Japanese or Korean schools after hours to stay fresh with their home languages. The comings-and-goings of these executives usually matter not at all to the company's American employees, save for the highest-level employees. It is simply one of the more "mysterious" aspects of working for a company with its HQ several thousand miles of (Pacific) ocean away. Recently, a Korean-staff Hyundai executive based in Orange County, California, and the company itself, has become the target of official inquiries after this executive suddenly left the USA for Korea soon after being involved in a freeway accident which caused the death of a motorcyclist. The story is being covered by the LOS ANGELES TIMES. Below find some of their coverage; the full story can be read by clicking here: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hyundai24may24,1,1240644.story

The family of a professional musician killed in a hit-and-run accident in Orange County filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Hyundai Motor America, alleging that company officials helped one of their colleagues leave the country before he could be questioned by police.

Wylie A. Aitken, an attorney representing the victim's family, said surveillance tapes from Los Angeles International Airport show that Hyundai employees helped Youn Bum Lee become a fugitive, contradicting statements they made to police investigating the crash.

"Justice has certainly been slow in this case," Aitken said, surrounded by Ryan Dallas Cook's parents and three sisters during a news conference at his Santa Ana law office. "But at least we're headed in the right direction."

Cook, 23, was killed in October 2005 when his motorcycle slammed into Lee's disabled car on the Costa Mesa Freeway. Lee, who had been drinking with colleagues shortly before the crash, left the scene and was on a plane to his native South Korea less than 24 hours later, according to police and court records.

Lee was charged last month in absentia with felony gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated; driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs with injury; and hit-and-run with injury or death.

Cook's family wants other Hyundai employees held criminally responsible for obstructing justice and being accessories after the fact.

In the meantime, family members say, they are seeking answers and justice through their lawsuit.

Steve here --- On a somewhat ironic note, the top executive of Hyundai, the conglomerate which is respondible for at least 15% of the gross national product of South Korea and a major power in Asia and throughout the world, as their car companies, Hyundai, Kia, Ssangyon, Daewoo (owned by GM) and others spread throughout the globe, is said to planning to donate an enormous amount of omney to charity in his home country in anwer to charges that he has engaged in unlawful acts throughout his career. All we can say is --- Nice to know you can build an opera house and buy a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in South Korea! Wonder if something similar will happen "behind the scnes" with this current Hyundai scandal brewing in the USA. Here's the story, reported by the Associated Press in USA TODAY:

Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo, appealing an embezzlement conviction and prison sentence, on Tuesday reaffirmed his promise to donate 1 trillion won ($1.1 billion) worth of personal assets to society.

Chung (third from left in the red tie at the ribbon-cutting for Hyundai's new plant in Alabama with other company and civic officials), who made the pledge last year as part of a public apology and attempt to earn leniency amid a slush fund scandal, said the money will be donated to the public through an independent committee over seven years. The committee will be set up by end of this year, he said.

Chung made the comments during questioning by his attorney at the Seoul High Court at his appeal hearing over a February conviction for embezzling company funds to set up a slush fund. He also answered questions about the donation plan from the presiding judge.

The donated money will be used to build an opera house in Seoul and 12 other cultural complexes across the country, Chung told the court. Chung said he hopes some of the money will be used in projects that can help prevent global warming.

Chung, one of South Korea's richest men, was sentenced to three years in jail for embezzling the equivalent of more than $100 million in company funds and breach of trust.

Steve again -- The Chung family (Hyundai Chairman Chung Mong-Koo in photo at left) and Hyundai have had their share of problems. Chung's son committed suicide in August, 2003, according to this from the NEW YORK TIMES:

Chung Mong Hun, a South Korean industrialist who was the business driver behind the South's policy of reconciliation toward North Korea, died this morning after falling from the 12th floor of the headquarters here of his family company, Hyundai Asan. The police said it was a suicide.

Mr. Chung's body was found by a Hyundai janitor, who saw it crumpled behind the building, and identified by his secretary, a local police officer said.

Mr. Chung, the 55-year-old heir to one of South Korea's largest fortunes, was facing a trial on charges that he secretly passed $100 million in money from the South Korean government to North Korea in the spring of 2000. The payment was said to have been a way to ensure that Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader, would receive Kim Dae Jung, then president of South Korea, on a visit to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Shortly after the June 2000 inter-Korean summit meeting, the South Korean president received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Chung, whose father, the founder of the Hyundai conglomerate, had chosen him to handle Hyundai's dealings with North Korea, was one of a number of South Korean business leaders who accompanied Kim Dae Jung on the trip to Pyongyang.