引用文章韓國好嗎?

聯合報的報導：http://www.udn.com/2006/5/31/NEWS/FINANCE/FIN5/3334255.shtml

...................南韓首爾中央地方法院30日以作假帳、挪用公款等多項罪名，判處大宇集團創辦人金宇中十年有期徒刑，並必須返還挪用的21.4兆韓元（220億美元）公款，和科以1,000萬韓元（1.06萬美元）罰金。 69歲的金宇中在1999年逃往國外躲避刑責，大部分時間居住法國，直到去年6月返國，被南韓檢方起訴，罪名包括做假帳41兆韓元、非法貸款9.08兆韓元，以及掏空公司資金19兆韓元並匯往國外等。但在行賄政府官員方面獲判無罪。 ...........................

寫完＂韓國好嗎?＂之後幾天,　聽到諾基亞的手機市場面臨三星,　摩托諾拉的強力挑戰,　接著才讀到紐約時報的＂ Daewoo' s Founder Is Given 10-Year Sentence for Fraud＂報導,去年,現代集團的高層,也被逮捕,　經濟,　人民,　財團,　法律,　執法與媒體之間的萬象,　真是令人深思.

引用文章Hyundai Arrest Shakes Foundations of South Korean Industry 　

＂...But the ultimate test of their company's mettle comes now: their boss, the charismatic chairman of the Hyundai Motor Company, sits in a jail, accused of the old-style corruption that this rapidly modernizing Asian nation hopes to leave behind. .....

.....Even more important, the corruption charges at Hyundai and a similar investigation earlier this year at the Samsung group are raising new questions about the management of Korean companies, just as some are joining the top ranks of global corporate players. ......

......''Samsung and Hyundai are the crown jewels in the Korean economy,'' said Lee Dong Gull, former vice chairman of the Financial Supervisory Commission, the nation's financial watchdog. ''They are too precious just to be in the hands of single families.''......

......Today, the chaebols dominate almost every business sector in South Korea, with their names proudly displayed in places like high-rise condominiums, supertankers and cellphones. According to the Bank of Korea, the central bank, the nation's 30 largest family-owned industrial groups account for almost 40 percent of the nation's $965 billion economy, the world's 14th largest. The biggest, the Samsung group, which includes the consumer electronics giant Samsung Electronics, alone controls about 7.6 percent of the country's economic assets, the central bank said. ......

......Experts say the public criticism is having an impact, even at mighty Samsung. On Tuesday, the group announced that Mr. Lee, its chairman, planned to pay all inheritance tax, $1.6 billion worth, when he hands over his stake in the group to his son. The sudden gesture was seen as a response to recent criticism that Mr. Lee was trying to transfer his assets to his children by using elaborate shareholding schemes to avoid taxes. ''The chaebol now know they have to change,'' said Jang Ha Sung, dean of the business school at Korea University in Seoul. ''The families will try to resist as long as they can. But they have to adapt to survive.'' ......

紐約時報的正文開始：

 Daewoo' s Founder Is Given 10-Year Sentence for Fraud 

Daewoo's Founder Is Given 10-Year Sentence for Fraud By CHOE SANG-HUN Published: May 31, 2006 SEOUL, South Korea, May 30 —

Kim Woo Choong, whose career as the rags-to-riches founder of the Daewoo Group ended in a corporate fraud scandal, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years in prison and ordered to forfeit 21.4 trillion won ($23 billion). The Seoul Central District Court said on Tuesday that Mr. Kim's conviction on charges that included accounting fraud and embezzlement should serve as a warning to others. Mr. Kim, who is 69 and ailing, plans to appeal, his lawyers said.

The forfeiture far exceeds his net worth. He was also fined 10 million won. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of 15 years and a forfeiture of 23.2 trillion won. Mr. Kim arrived at court in an ambulance, with an intravenous drip attached to his arm. He did not comment on the ruling. The court allowed him to remain in a Seoul hospital where he has received treatment since a heart operation in August. Some analysts said that the court's penalty might reflect an emerging hard line among judges, who have often been accused of being too lenient on tycoons accused of economic crimes.

The presiding judge, Hwang Hyun Joo, wrote in his verdict: "A severe punishment is inevitable for Mr. Kim because he abandoned corporate ethics and circumvented the law, pushing Daewoo Group to bankruptcy. This damaged banks that lent money to Daewoo and caused a burden to the people because a tremendous amount of taxpayer money was used to clean up his companies." The investigation of the collapse of Daewoo in 1998 has symbolized South Korea's resolve to clean up its family-controlled industrial groups, known as chaebol, whose expansion fueled the country's rapid growth but also sowed the seeds for a financial crisis in the late 1990's.

South Korea has recovered with the help of a $57 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. But financial specialists say that much of the country's long-term economic health will depend on how the government fares in its campaign to change Hyundai, Samsung and other conglomerates that had resisted pressure to improve their corporate governance. Mr. Kim was once revered as the man who built a small textile house into South Korea's second-largest industrial conglomerate, after Samsung. His legend unraveled when Daewoo crumbled under $80 billion in debt in 1998.

After living six years as a fugitive abroad, Mr. Kim returned in June last year, saying he wanted to make peace and die at home. Prosecutors immediately arrested and indicted him on charges of illegally procuring loans of 9.8 trillion won by manipulating books and forging export-import documents. He was also charged with misallocating $20 billion in Daewoo's money through overseas accounts and helping to falsify the company's books to inflate its assets by about 41 trillion won. In its verdict, the court recognized

Mr. Kim's role as a "locomotive" for South Korea's economic growth. It also said Mr. Kim's "diligence and passion" had set an example for millions of South Koreans. But it harshly criticized him for not admitting to his misdeeds and "trying to justify them by describing them as management decisions and as part of a widespread practice of his times." Daewoo came to symbolize the excesses of the chaebol, which still form the basis of much of the economy. They have been accused of expanding on borrowed money and bribing governments, which nurtured them into the engine of an export-driven economy.

Another executive, Chung Mong Koo, the chairman of the Hyundai-Kia Automotive Group, is on trial on charges of embezzling and misusing company funds. Mr. Kim personified the belief that South Korea, a country with few natural resources, had to export to survive. In the 1990's, he ignored warnings that he was overstretching and went on a buying spree, snapping up antiquated auto and home appliance plants in former Communist countries.

By 1997, Daewoo had 40 affiliates at home and 396 subsidiaries overseas. The conglomerate generated annual revenue of 62 trillion won in operations that included cars, ships, refrigerators, television sets and financial services. Daewoo's flagship company, Daewoo Motor, was renamed GM Daewoo Auto and Technology after its acquisition by General Motors in 2002. "I think some of the plans they had for Daewoo were very good, farsighted," GM Daewoo's chief executive, Nick Reilly, said recently. "However, the implementation of those plans was not well executed. Perhaps his strength as a leader was too much because it didn't seem that other opinions could be heard."