Multiple Bribery Review Committee Members Indicted
The prosecution investigating the suspicion of 'collusion in supervision by Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH)' has collectively indicted 68 people, including supervision companies and evaluation committee members who received bribes.
On the 30th, the Fair Trade Investigation Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kim Yong-sik) announced that it indicted 17 supervision companies and 18 evaluation committee members, totaling 68 individuals, on charges of violating the Fair Trade Act and the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (bribery), and took measures to confiscate bribes amounting to approximately 650 million KRW.
Kim Yong-sik, Chief Prosecutor of the Fair Trade Investigation Division at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, is briefing on the investigation results of the LH case at the Seoul High Prosecutors' Office in Seocho-gu on the 30th. On this day, Chief Prosecutor Kim announced that 68 people were indicted for collusion in public building supervision bids and bribery cases. Photo by Jo Yong-jun jun21@
The 'LH supervision collusion' case involves collusion in supervision bids for public and rental apartments, hospitals, police stations, and other major public buildings located nationwide in places such as Yangju, Hwaseong, and Ulsan, where large sums of money were provided to evaluation committee members so that the predetermined winning companies could secure the contracts.
The 17 supervision companies and 19 individuals including Mr. A are accused of colluding in a total of 94 cases from October 2019 to February 2023 in public supervision bids, dividing contracts among themselves, with a total winning bid amount of approximately 574 billion KRW (violation of the Fair Trade Act). Eighteen evaluation committee members, including professors and public officials (six detained), are charged with receiving bribes from companies in exchange for favorable scores from January 2020 to December 2022 (bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes). Twenty executives and employees of supervision companies (one detained) were also indicted on the same charges.
Some evaluation committee members were found to have induced competition among companies to raise bid amounts or received money simultaneously from multiple companies.
According to the prosecution, based on the list of evaluation committee members, close business management such as attending congratulatory and condolence events, providing gift certificates, and golf entertainment was conducted. Committee members who received lobbying used specific marks to identify proposals from certain companies, thereby avoiding blind evaluation. Afterwards, they contacted the committee members via Telegram or public phones to immediately pay bribes or promise post-payment, giving top scores to the requested companies and the lowest scores to competing companies, and finally settled the total 'personnel fees' in cash according to the consortium companies' share ratios.
The prosecution stated, "By conducting a swift and focused investigation before reporting to the Fair Trade Commission through the cartel leniency system (leniency program), we thoroughly uncovered not only the collusive acts of the supervision companies but also the financial collusion between the supervision companies and the evaluation committee members."
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