The prosecution investigating allegations of large-scale bribery during the bid evaluation process for apartment construction project management services (supervision) commissioned by Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) has moved to secure the custody of three evaluation committee members.
The Fair Trade Investigation Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Yong Seong-jin) filed arrest warrants on the 16th for public enterprise employee A and private university professors B and C, who are suspected of violating the Act on Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (bribery).
According to the prosecution, A is accused of receiving a bribe of 30 million won from the representative of a company participating in the LH-commissioned supervision bid around January 2020 in exchange for favorable evaluation. B is charged with accepting 30 million won as a bid evaluation fee from the representative of another participating company around March 2022, and separately pocketing 20 million won from a competing company representative. C is under investigation for receiving a total of 80 million won in bribes in two installments from the representative of yet another participating company between March and May 2022.
The prosecution believes that these individuals received money from both competing companies or encouraged competition between them to propose higher amounts, awarding scores to the company that offered more money to secure the contract.
Meanwhile, since August last year, the prosecution has been investigating allegations of collusion involving thousands of billions of won among participating companies in construction project management service bids commissioned by LH and the Public Procurement Service, violating the Fair Trade Act.
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