Day: December 19, 2023

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50 biz groups fined for public filing requirement violations in 2023

SEOUL, The antitrust regulator said Tuesday it has imposed a combined fine of 684 million won (US$524,499) on 90 affiliates of 50 conglomerates this year for their failure to properly make public filings on major business information.

Large business groups with assets of 5 trillion won or more are required to publicly file details about their business operations, including inter-affiliate transactions, ownership structure and non-affiliates, and a total of 82 large business groups are subject to the rules in 2023, according to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC).

A total of 102 cases of violations were found this year, up from 95 in 2022, the FTC said, adding that 80 companies affiliated with 38 business groups faced a combined fine of 855 million won last year.

Hankook Tire and Technology Co., a major tiremaker, violated the public filing obligations the most with 10 cases and faced a fine of 42.78 million won in 2023, and KCC topped the list in terms of the amount of fines with 84 million won for two incidents, the regulator said.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

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Students demand 20 mln won each in compensation after ending bell rang earlier by mistake during CSAT

SEOUL, Dozens of students filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking compensation from the government after the ending bell in last month’s college entrance exam rang 1 1/2 minutes earlier than scheduled by mistake at a test site in Seoul.

The 39 students lodged the suit with the Seoul Central District Court, demanding 20 million won (US$15,296) per person in compensation from the state, according to the law firm Myungjin, representing the students.

At the test site set up at Seoul’s Kyungdong High School, the bell notifying the end of the first Korean session during the Nov. 16 state-administered exam rang 90 seconds earlier than scheduled, according to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education.

The accident happened as the teacher in charge clicked the alarm earlier by mistake. Many schools manually sound the alarm during the annual College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) due to concerns of broadcasting system errors in the automatic system.

After realizing the mistake, the school gave the test papers back to the students during lunchtime and allowed them to solve problems and mark answers for 90 seconds but would not allow them to change already marked answers.

The students, however, claimed they could not fully engage in the test due to the incident, and the retesting took up half of their lunch time, which disadvantaged them in the following test sessions. Some reportedly gave up on the exam and returned home.

The law firm said education authorities have not offered any words of apology or explanations or taken measures to prevent similar incidents from happening again, even though more than a month has passed since the accident.

It also claimed the teacher in charge of ringing the bell used a private device instead of the state-designated clock.

In 2020, a similar incident happened at a test site at DeokWon Girl’s High School in Seoul.

Test-takers and their parents filed a suit against the state and the Seoul city government, asking for compensation of 8 million won per student, after the bell rang three minutes earlier during the national college entrance exam.

Source: Yonhap News Agency

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