South Korea Jails Former Hanjin Shipping Chairwoman
By Aiswarya Lakshmi
Sunday, December 10, 2017
The former chairwoman Choi Eun-young (55) of the now-defunct Hanjin Shipping was jailed 18 months for insider trading, reports Yonhap.
According to the report the Seoul Central District Court found Choi guilty of selling off her family-stake in the shipping company days before it declared a court-led debt restructuring plan. She was also fined with USD 1.09 million.
The court said, although her charges are grave enough to deserve a heavy punishment, it considered that the stake selling does not appear to have been meticulously planned out and that Choi already donated 10 billion won to bear the responsibility for her misdeed.
Choi was indicted in December last year for unloading the stakes held by her and her two daughters, taking advantage of the undisclosed information. Her family avoided some 1 billion won of possible losses.
Hanjin Shipping, once world's seventh-largest shipper, was declared bankrupt on 17 February this year, in what was one of the largest bankruptcies in the history of container shipping.
In April, 2016, Hanjin Shipping, once South Korea’s largest shipping company, filed for court receivership after failing to deal with its mounting debts amid a protracted global downturn in the shipping sector.
Choi is the wife of the late Cho Su-ho, the younger brother of Hanjin Group Chairman Cho Yang-ho, who also runs the country's top air carrier Korean Air Lines Co. She took over the management control of Hanjin Shipping in 2006 after her husband's death and headed the company until April 2014.