Kyobo Life Put Option Appeal Third Trial... Kyobo "Anjin Accounting Provided Partial Information" (Comprehensive)

[Asia Economy Reporter Changhwan Lee] The appellate trial for Deloitte Anjin Accounting Corporation and financial investor (FI) officials, who are on trial for allegedly applying a valuation date favorable to investors during Kyobo Life Insurance's valuation process, was held on the 14th.

During the third appellate trial session held at the Seoul High Court that morning, witness examinations took place.

The appellate court heard testimonies from Professor A of Ewha Womans University and Kyobo Life Insurance employee B, both called as witnesses by the prosecution. Professor A has participated as an expert member of the Ethics Investigation Committee of the Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The Kyobo Life employee was selected as a witness due to their role in providing materials to the accounting firm as the evaluated institution.

In the trial, the prosecution pointed out that the Ethics Investigation Committee's investigation results were limited and incomplete from the start due to restricted information provision.

The prosecution reiterated previously presented email evidence, claiming that at the early stage of preparing the valuation report, defendants including Affinity and Deloitte Anjin Accounting Corporation officials mutually agreed to derive results favorable to themselves.

According to the prosecution, the exchanged emails between both parties amounted to 244 in total. The emails explicitly stated that since the case was likely to proceed to litigation, they agreed to use all possible favorable methods to increase the valuation results. Additionally, it was confirmed that emails were sent containing valuation amounts of Kyobo Life Insurance according to various evaluation method scenarios, requesting the recipients to fill in the blanks.

When asked two to three times whether Professor A had seen these emails, he replied, "I consistently do not recall."

Professor A testified, "When using the Comparable Transactions Method and Comparable Companies Method, Affinity requested to exclude old past transactions in the Comparable Transactions Method and to exclude smaller companies in the Comparable Companies Method. Although it appeared that Deloitte Anjin Accounting Corporation accepted these requests from Affinity, the Ethics Investigation Committee members did not consider this conduct to be improper."

Contradictory testimony was also presented regarding claims that Deloitte Anjin Accounting Corporation did not receive a significant portion of requested materials from Kyobo Life Insurance. According to Kyobo Life Insurance's response to Professor A's question confirmed during the trial, Kyobo Life submitted 42 out of 51 requested documents, excluding 9.

For the unsubmitted materials, Kyobo Life answered that there were no corresponding documents or it was difficult to produce them. In the witness examination of employee B, who was responsible for providing the materials, B stated, "There was an instruction to cooperate as much as possible with providing materials, and the data room was a very practical matter with no special remarks. There were no additional requests from Deloitte Anjin or Affinity regarding the nine pieces of information that were not provided."

A Kyobo Life Insurance official stated, "It was confirmed in this trial that Deloitte Anjin provided only information favorable to themselves to obtain the desired results. Since the illegal acts of Affinity and Deloitte Anjin officials are clear, we expect an appropriate conclusion in the appellate trial."

Meanwhile, the fourth trial session for two Affinity officials and three Deloitte Anjin accountants is scheduled for the 28th.

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