The special counsel team investigating alleged outside pressure in the probe of Coupang's unpaid severance and the loss of currency band wrappers carried out searches and seizures targeting Um Hee-jun, a prosecutor at the Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office (former head of the Bucheon branch of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office), and Kim Dong-hee, a prosecutor at the Busan High Prosecutors' Office (former Vice Chief Prosecutor of the Bucheon branch).
According to the legal community on the 24th, from the afternoon the special counsel team sent prosecutors and investigators to Kim's office at the Busan High Prosecutors' Office and Um's office at the Gwangju High Prosecutors' Office to conduct searches and seizures as part of an abuse of authority investigation.
Prosecutors Um and Kim are suspected (abuse of authority) of exerting outside pressure earlier this year on Director General Prosecutor Moon, who was investigating allegations that Coupang failed to pay severance, to issue a no-charge decision.
The special counsel team also executed a search and seizure warrant for Shin Ga-hyeon, the Bucheon branch prosecutor who served as lead prosecutor in the Coupang unpaid severance case.
The special counsel team also conducted searches and seizures of reference witnesses involving attorney Kwon Sun-young, who represented former Coupang Fulfillment Services (Coupang CFS) CEO Eom Sung-hwan, and Director General Prosecutor Moon Ji-seok, who handled the investigation.
According to Director General Prosecutor Moon, who exposed the allegations, Prosecutor Shin and Moon argued that Coupang's change to its work rules was illegal, but Prosecutor Kim coaxed them by saying a no-charge decision was clear, and Prosecutor Um provided a no-charge guideline.
Moon also claims that Prosecutor Kim, through attorney Kwon with whom Kim has personal ties, provided search and seizure information to Coupang, and that documents such as the key evidence "improvement of the day labor system" were deliberately omitted from the report the Bucheon branch sent to the Supreme Prosecutors' Office.
Prosecutor Um says all of Director General Prosecutor Moon's claims are false and has asked the special counsel team to investigate on suspicion of false accusation.
The allegation of unpaid severance at Coupang is that in May 2023 the company changed its work rules to the disadvantage of workers and withheld money in the nature of severance.
Coupang changed its severance payment rule from "for day laborers as well, if they work for more than one year, only periods when weekly working hours are less than 15 are excluded" to "if they work for more than one year and weekly working hours are 15 or more."
It required recalculating the severance period if there was even a single day during the employment period when weekly working hours were 15 or fewer, effectively making the so-called severance settlement "reset."
Internal documents from Coupang at the time, such as "improvement of the day labor system," are said to contain the rationale for changing the severance payment criteria and state that the concepts of annual leave, severance, and breaks in employment period would not be separately communicated to day labor employees and that objections would be handled on a case-by-case basis.
The Bucheon branch of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) sent the case to prosecutors with a recommendation to indict on Jan., but the Bucheon branch of the Incheon District Prosecutors' Office decided not to indict on Apr. In response, the Ministry of Justice decided in Oct. to conduct a standing special counsel investigation into the case, and since the 6th the standing special counsel team has been investigating.