HAPPY "CAR NUT" NEW YEAR TO ALL! Mr. and Mrs. Car Nut (and Tippi the resident and incumbent Cat) wish everyone, everywhere a Great 2008 --- With good health, safe journeys, laughter, fun, (reasonable) excitement and Great Prosperity for all!
IT'S GONNA BE GREAT IN '08!
That's our wish to you ... Apparently, in South Korea, the well-known, kind-hearted and soft-on-crime courts in that bastion of democracy (written with tongue firmly in cheek) have made the wishes of at least three major automotive executives come true --- They ain't going to jail, after all! Here are those stories from last year, this first one (of three below) found in South Korean papers on New Year's Eve, 2007:
The founder and former chairman of South Korea's Daewoo has been pardoned in a traditional New Year amnesty. Kim Woo-Choong, 71, was sent to prison for eight and a half years in 2006 for crimes including embezzlement and accounting fraud. But one month later the court ordered the suspension of the sentence because of ill health. (Photo --- Daewoo executive Kim Woo-Choong, pardoned for his crimes; and why not ... he looks so terribly honest).
Daewoo went under in 1999 with debts of US$82 billion leaving the government to rescue its component companies. Woo-Chong fled the country and was accused of ordering his executives to lie in order to obtain loans. He was also accused of smuggling money overseas. He eventually returned to South Korea in 2005 to face charges. In addition to the prison sentence, he was ordered to forfeit 17.9 trillion won (US$18.2 billion) and pay 10 million won in fines (which amounts to $10,617, and, yes, that's in US dollars; hope it doesn't break the poor, sick guy --- Though apparently he did have US$18.2 billion to "forfeit", just like any other average auto exec).
Daewoo started out as a small textile firm, which he had bought for $5,000 in 1967. From this simple beginning, Kim turned Daewoo into one of South Korea's most powerful industrial conglomerates, or "chaebols", with close ties to other business leaders and top politicians. At its height, Daewoo employed 320,000 people in 110 countries. General Motors bought a major stake in Daewoo Motor to create GM Daewoo in 2002.
Apparently, there are special times on the South Korean calendar other than the "traditional New Year amnesty" when those in need of a little help from those on-high get just what they wished for. In September, 2007, the following news out of South Korea had millions of people around the world shaking their heads in disbelief, save for the White House, where some of our employees probably thought that a convicted big-time swindler being pardoned, entirely, from a prison sentence, simply because he is so big-time was a "good move". While you ponder the ways of Korea and Scooter Libby, read this:
An appeals court suspended a three-year prison sentence for Hyundai Motor Co. Chairman Chung Mong-koo on Thursday, saying the tycoon is too important to South Korea’s economy to go to jail for embezzlement. (Photo --- Hyundai execs and others cutting a ceremonial ribbon; Chairman Chung is third from the left).
A three-judge panel at the Seoul High Court suspended the sentence for five years, meaning that the 69-
year-old head of the nation’s biggest automaker will avoid prison as long as he keeps a clean record during that period.
A lower court had sentenced Chung in February to three years for embezzling more than $100 million from the company to set up a slush fund. Prosecutors say the fund was used to pay lobbyists to gain government favors and for personal use.
Presiding Judge Lee Jae-hong told the packed courtroom that Hyundai Motor has great influence over the nation’s economy and Chung, its hands-on leader, is the symbol of the company.
“I am also a citizen of the Republic of Korea,” Lee said. “I was unwilling to engage in a gamble that would put the nation’s economy at risk.” Chung, free on bail after spending two months in jail after his arrest in April last year, has been actively running the company, which ranks as the sixth-largest automaker in the world and has ambitions to become the fifth-largest by 2010.
Lee said he struggled with the decision, originally set for July 10, and postponed it twice, saying the court needed more time. He said he sought the views of various people, including other judges, prosecutors, lawyers, journalists and “even taxi drivers and restaurant employees.” That would give anyone a lot of confidence in the South Korean court system ... That the presiding judge of the Seoul High Court, their equivalent of the US Supreme Court, would wander the streets asking people he bumps into their opinion on what he should do about this pesky "Chung case". (Photo --- An apparently proud and happy Hyundai Motors' Chairman Chung, standing amid some of his company's products, avoided any prison time when prosecutors asked judges to give him six years; well, you know, at least they asked).
In his appeal, Chung asked the court to be allowed to avoid prison to devote his energies to South Korea’s biggest automaker to contribute to the country’s economy. Prosecutors sought a six-year prison term, saying the original decision was not harsh enough for the crime. The court also ordered Chung to fulfill a promise he made last year to donate 1 trillion won ($1.1 billion) of his personal assets to society and told him to do community service.
But Park Wan-gi, an activist with the Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice, denounced the ruling, saying it reinforced the perception that the rich can avoid jail. In a similar case, the Seoul High Court in 2005 suspended a three-year prison term for accounting irregularities handed to Chey Tae-won, CEO and chairman of South Korea’s leading oil refiner, SK Corp., now SK Energy.
Chung has pushed Hyundai Motor to expand aggressively overseas, building factories in China, India, Turkey and the United States, with another one currently under construction in the Czech Republic. Hyundai Motor affiliate Kia Motors Corp. has done the same, manufacturing cars in China and Slovakia and building another plant in the U.S. state of Georgia, near Hyundai Motor’s factory in Alabama.
Last year, Hyundai and Kia accounted for about 72 percent of South Korea’s automobile exports. Autos account for 13 percent of the country’s total exports. Hyundai welcomed the decision. “We can now devote our full energies to addressing the numerous challenges that face us and building a global brand,” it said in a statement.
This pardoning of convicted criminals in South Korea, when they just happen to be what some used to call "Captains of Industry", was nothing new when Hyundai's Chung had his sentence commuted; no, just a few months before the Chung pardoning, the gears of South Korean justice had already been ground to a halt. Even earlier last year, on March 28, 2007, the South Korean government also saw fit to pardon another top automotive executive, yet another one from Hyundai, the Big Boy of Korean money and politics:
Hyundai Motor is South Korea's top carmaker, and prosecutors have arrested the chief executive of carmaker Hyundai Motor's logistics subsidiary, Glovis, on corruption charges. 
Lee Ju-eun is suspected of embezzling 7bn won ($6.73m; £3.85m) in company money for use in lobbying politicians. Prosecutors say the investigation is linked to the arrest of businessman Kim Jae-rok on illegal lobbying charges. Hyundai Motor is suspected of paying Mr. Kim for his influence with politicians and local government officials. Prosecutors have also banned a number of top Hyundai Motor officials from leaving the country.
Hyundai was featured in a corruption investigation in 2003, when prosecutors examined allegations of illegal election campaign financing. Vice-chairman Kim Dong Jin was given a two-year suspended sentence and later pardoned. (Isn't being "featured" a rather strange way to describe Hyundai's predicament?)
Well, there you have it! Obviously, the way to "beat the cops" in South Korea is to make sure you work for one of their big car companies while you are committing your crime, whatever it may be ...
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