The chairman of Qoo10 Group, Kyu Young-bae, has been charged without detention on the 30th for allegedly withholding wages and severance pay amounting to approximately 26 billion won from employees of its subsidiaries, TMON and WeMakePrice.
On the same day, the Public Investigation Division 3 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office, led by Director General Kim Tae-hoon, charged Kyu and the representatives of TMON and WeMakePrice, Ryu Kwang-jin and Ryu Hwa-hyun, as well as Kim Hyo-jong, the representative of Qoo10 Technology, with violations of the Labor Standards Act and the Act on the Guarantee of Workers' Retirement Benefits, also without detention.
The four individuals are accused of withholding approximately 5.6 billion won in wages for 613 employees of their subsidiaries. Additionally, it has also been revealed that they failed to pay retirement benefits amounting to about 20.7 billion won for 733 employees.
Earlier, the prosecution charged the four on Dec. 11 of last year with fraud and breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, also without detention. TMON and WeMakePrice were unable to settle payment for merchants that had opened shops in the second half of last year. The prosecution's investigation found that Kyu had used sales proceeds that should have been returned to merchants to acquire another company and sent the funds to the parent company. The first trial of this case is currently ongoing at the Seoul Central District Court.
TMON and WeMakePrice filed for corporate rehabilitation in September of last year after struggling with financial difficulties. In October of the same year, former employees of Qoo10 Technology reported Kyu and others to the Ministry of Employment and Labor for violations of the Labor Standards Act, claiming that the company had not properly paid wages and severance.