SOUTH KOREA LOOKS AT HANJIN’S TAXES

   The Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office in Seoul, South Korea, has
summoned the founder and honorary chairman of the Hanjin Group, 79-year-old Cho Choong-hoon, for questioning about alleged tax evasion among the group’s subsidiaries.
   The Hanjin Group is South Korea’s sixth-ranked chaebol, a power bloc of diverse but intertwined businesses. A few days ago, Lee Ik-chi, the head of another chaebol, Hyundai Securities, received a two-year prison term for violations of stock trading.
   The country’s tax office had imposed a $484 million penalty and filed a
charge of tax evasion against the Cho family, Korean Air and Hanjin
Shipping.
   The elder Cho’s two sons, Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Korean Air Lines, part of the Hanjin Group, and Cho Su-ho, president of Hanjin Shipping, had been called in for interrogation ahead of their father.