‘Dongyang Group Incident’ Former Chairman Hyun Hyun-hyun’s Seongbuk-gu Residence Auction

▲ Hyun-Hyun Hyun, Chairman of Dongyang Group (Photo)

[Asia Economy Reporter Ryu Tae-min] The Seoul Seongbuk-dong residence jointly owned by former chairman Hyun Jae-hyun, the central figure in the ‘Dongyang Group incident,’ and his wife has been put up for court auction.

According to Gigi Auction, a court auction specialist company, on the 3rd, the Seoul Northern District Court held an auction for the single-family house in Seongbuk-dong, Seongbuk-gu, jointly owned by former chairman Hyun and former vice-chairwoman Lee Hye-kyung. Completed in December 1997, this house spans from two basement floors to three above-ground floors, with a land and building area each measuring 1,478㎡. The initial appraised value was set at 12,687,097,200 KRW, but there were no bidders on the day of the sale. The second auction date is scheduled for the 7th of next month. The minimum bid price is 20% lower than the initial appraisal, at 10,149,678,000 KRW.

Senior researcher Lee Joo-hyun of Gigi Auction stated, “Because it is a large and expensive luxury residential area, demand is limited,” adding, “According to the court’s investigation that the property has not been maintained for several years, it seems there will be no difficulties in taking possession of the house after the successful bid.”

The auction was originally set to begin at the end of January last year, but bidding only started more than a year later. The court accepted the personal bankruptcy petition filed by Dongyang Group creditors in 2016 and declared bankruptcy for former chairman Hyun, but the auction process was delayed as he appealed the decision. Currently, the total amount of claims registered on the property due to seizure and provisional seizure exceeds 282 billion KRW.

Former chairman Hyun was sentenced to seven years in prison by the Supreme Court in 2015 and was released in January last year after serving his term. The Supreme Court confirmed a two-year prison sentence at the end of last September for former vice-chairwoman Lee, who was prosecuted for hiding artworks to avoid court enforcement after the Dongyang Group incident. A class-action lawsuit filed by victims of the Dongyang Group incident is awaiting a first trial verdict.

The Dongyang incident involved Dongyang Group hiding the risk of default in 2013 and issuing corporate bonds and commercial papers worth about 1.3 trillion KRW through Dongyang Securities, causing losses to approximately 4,000 general investors.

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