Bond investors in JoongAng Group affiliates including JTBC filed a criminal complaint with prosecutors against Chairman Hong Seok-hyun of JoongAng Holdings and other members of the owner family.
Attorney Changcheon, a law firm representing 319 bond investors in JoongAng Group affiliates, held a press conference at the Seoul Bar Association Hall in Seocho-dong on the 9th and said, "We filed a complaint with the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office the previous day against Chairman Hong and others on suspicion of violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act, among other charges."
Those accused number 20, including Chairman Hong; Hong Jeong-do, vice chairman of JoongAng Group; Hong Jeong-in, CEO of Contentree JoongAng; other members of the owner family; incumbent and former CEOs of affiliates including JTBC; and executives and employees of financial companies involved in bond sales. The defense team said retail investors' losses it identified amount to at least 32.5 billion won.
The defense team argued, "The owner family and management circulated funds among affiliates to inflate capital on the financial statements and dressed up hard-to-recover receivables as if they were normal receivables," and "It has been confirmed through precise, objective materials that they issued and sold corporate bonds and electronic short-term bonds in this manner."
On the reason for accusing the owner family and management, they said the problematic funding and accounting structure was designed at the group level, not by individual affiliates.
They added that while they directly asked the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors' Office to investigate, they also requested that, if that proves difficult, the authority to direct investigations over the Financial Supervisory Service's special judicial police be exercised swiftly.
Attorney Shin Dong-hwan said, "As JTBC enters rehabilitation proceedings, the party responsible for managing records will change, so undisclosed internal materials must be secured before they disappear," and noted, "We asked prosecutors to conduct a swift, compulsory investigation, including search and seizure."