Police have launched an investigation into a case in which a shareholders' group filed criminal complaints against the CEOs of Samsung Electronics(005930) and SK hynix(000660), saying bonuses are not subject to collective bargaining.
On Aug. 5, the Korea Shareholder Movement Headquarters said, "The cases accusing the CEOs of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix of breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes have been assigned to the First and Second Investigation Divisions of the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency, respectively."
Earlier, on the 22nd of last month, the group filed complaints with the National Office of Investigation (NOI) of the Korean National Police Agency against Samsung Electronics CEOs Jun Young-hyun and Roh Tae-Moon and SK hynix CEO Kwak Noh-jung. They argue that breach of trust is established because, without sufficiently reviewing labor-management agreements, they agreed to pay bonuses and created a structure that unjustly drains company assets.
The Shareholder Movement Headquarters said there is a potential illegality in a method that pre-links and pays a certain percentage of pre-tax operating profit as bonuses. It also argued that external expenditure of company funds, including bonuses, is a matter for a shareholders' meeting resolution and cannot be subject to autonomous labor-management bargaining.
The group also filed a complaint last month with the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials (CIO) against Minister Kim Young-hoon of the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL) on charges of abuse of power in the exercise of official authority and coercion.
The Shareholder Movement Headquarters argued that bonuses are not subject to collective bargaining, yet the Minister induced a tentative agreement during Samsung Electronics union's strike phase in May, saying the Minister abused authority and intervened in labor-management bargaining.