Parties seeking special probe on Samsung

A group of liberal presidential canidates from South Korea, agreed to submit legislation Wednesday about allogations of bribery from the Samsung Group to various governement officials, judges, prosecutors, lawmakers and journalists.

Presidential candidates of the United New Democratic Party, the Democratic Labor Party and the Create Korea Party agreed to submit legislation for probing Wednesday and pass it by early next month, said Yu Eun-hye, a spokeswoman at the United New Democratic Party, the largest liberal party in South Korea. The three parties have a combined 150 seats, a majority in the single-chamber 299 member parliament.

Samsung, which has strongly denied the allegations and offered detailed rebuttals to the claims, said it would cooperate completely.

The investigation followed the filing of a criminal lawsuit last week by two civic groups against three top Samsung executives. The lawsuit was based on claims last week by a former top Samsung legal affairs official, that Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee masterminded the payoffs.
In latest allegations said that two current prosecutors, including a prosecutor-general appointee, and a former one regularly took bribes from Samsung. All of those cited have denied the allegations.

Among the claims last week was that Samsung manipulated evidence and witnesses in a court case over alleged shady deals said to be aimed at transferring corporate control from Lee to his son.

For decades, South Korean conglomerates have been accused by critics of separates dealings between subsidiaries and affiliates to help controlling families evade taxes and transfer wealth to heirs through a complex ownership structure.

I think this is the right decision for the government to probe into this issue and keep the corruption out of the economy. The allogations against Samsung seem to add up and something needs to be done about it otherwise the bribery will continue thus maintaining a shady business.