Prosecutors Summon and Question Cho Dae-sik, SK Supex Chairman, and Cho Kyung-mok, SK Energy CEO, Today

Jo Dae-sik

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] On the 7th, the prosecution summoned Cho Dae-sik, Chairman of SK Supex Council, who is suspected of being involved in the breach of trust charges against Choi Seon-won, Chairman of SK Networks, who has been indicted. Chairman Cho is known as the second-in-command within SK Group.

According to the legal community, the Anti-Corruption Investigation Division 1 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Jeon Jun-cheol) summoned Chairman Cho and Cho Kyung-mok, CEO of SK Energy, for questioning as suspects on the morning of the same day.

The prosecution is additionally investigating whether there was group-level involvement in Chairman Choi's charges of causing damage to SK Group by using affiliates for personal purposes, for which he was previously indicted.

The summons and investigation of Chairman Cho and CEO Cho are being conducted in the same context.

The prosecution believes that they, along with Chairman Choi, forced SKC to invest an excessive 70 billion KRW in a paid-in capital increase of SK Telesys, which fell into a capital erosion state in 2015, causing losses to the listed company SKC.

At that time, Chairman Choi was the CEO of SK Telesys, Chairman Cho was the chairman of the SKC board, and CEO Cho was the head of SK Group's finance office. Chairman Cho is suspected of approving the agenda for SKC to invest in SK Telesys's paid-in capital increase, and CEO Cho is known to have led the task force (TF) team for the normalization of SK Telesys's management.

Chairman Choi was arrested and indicted on charges of embezzling and breaching trust of approximately 223.5 billion KRW from six companies he operated, including SK Networks, SKC, and SK Telesys, under the pretexts of paying for the paid-in capital increase and supporting insolvent affiliates.

Additionally, he is charged with deceiving the New Growth Engine Fund into subscribing to approximately 27.5 billion KRW worth of bonds with warrants (BW) by pretending to participate in the paid-in capital increase with his personal funds during SK Telesys's issuance of BW in October 2012.

He is also accused of violating the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act by exchanging approximately 1.4 million USD (about 1.6 billion KRW) under employees' names over several years, and taking out about 800,000 USD (about 900 million KRW) in foreign currency overseas without reporting it to the relevant customs authorities.

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