United Future Party: "Optimus Case, Hana Bank and KSD Also Negligent in Management... Responsibility and Duty Must Be Clearly Defined"

United Future Party's Private Equity Fund Special Committee Receives Status Reports from Hana Bank and KSD
"They Have Their Claims but Could Not Convince the Committee... Seems to Have Intentionally Neglected and Abandoned"

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyemin] The United Future Party criticized Hana Bank and the Korea Securities Depository, which have come under scrutiny for responsibility in connection with the Optimus Asset Management case, saying they were "extremely negligent in their duties as good custodians."

The party's Special Committee on Private Equity Fund Corruption Prevention and Victim Relief reached this conclusion after hearing a briefing on current issues from Hana Bank and the Depository at the National Assembly that morning. Committee Chair Yoo Eui-dong told reporters after the briefing, "All stakeholders and related parties failed to fulfill their roles as custodians," and criticized, "In some aspects, it seems they deliberately condoned or neglected their duties."

The core of the Optimus scandal is that Optimus Asset Management deceived investors by claiming the fund was invested in public institution accounts receivable, but instead invested in risky assets through private bonds of ghost companies, causing investor losses amounting to 500 billion KRW. In this process, Hana Bank acted as the custodian managing assets under the instructions of the asset manager, and the Depository handled fund accounting as the administrative manager.

The fund distributors have raised suspicions that despite the Depository having an attachment file agreeing to acquire private bonds of unlisted companies, it altered the records to show the purchase of public institution accounts receivable as requested by Optimus Asset Management. Hana Bank points out that although the trust contract for the Optimus fund stated the investment target as public institution accounts receivable, it purchased private bonds of unlisted companies following Optimus's management instructions.

In response, the Depository explained at the meeting, "(The largest distributor) NH Investment & Securities was aware in advance that the fund had a layered structure, so they should have verified the actual existence of accounts receivable and private bonds through the custodian bank." Hana Bank also explained, "Since the benchmark price calculated by the asset manager was always within the legally permitted error range (0.3%) compared to the price calculated by our bank, it was difficult to think that verification was necessary."

Chairman Yoo criticized the fact that responsibility is being passed around among distributors, custodians, and administrative managers, saying, "Rather than the fault of a specific party, all related stakeholders collectively failed to fulfill their roles as custodians." He added, "Each party is quite sensitive about legal responsibility, so they did not explicitly state their positions on joint liability here," and criticized, "The Depository also has its own claims, but these are merely their assertions and did not sufficiently convince the special committee members."

Yoo said, "We are investigating and considering what motivated and incentivized them to act this way," and added, "Overall, I believe it is necessary to clearly define responsibilities and duties for the healthy operation of the capital market. If there were institutional shortcomings in supervision, our primary goal is to supplement them through this opportunity."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.