As if things weren’t bad enough already for Samsung now their offices in Seoul have been raided in relation to suspected dodgy payments made to the daughter of President Park Geun-hye’s confidante Choi Soon-sil.
Authorities in Korea have said that Choi, “exerted influence over public affairs, despite having no official role in government, and that she used her political and business ties to benefit her daughter, an equestrian athlete.”
In case you weren’t aware, there’s a whole heap of political turmoil at the moment in South Korea with President Park Geun-hye’s approval ratings seeming dropping through the floor amid all manners of scandals.
Equally allegations of widespread corruption, price fixing and bribery have plagued Samsung for years so, would it come as a surprise if the company was involved in some dodgy business with governments… not really.
CCTV News sums it up in this report:
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But before anyone says it’s just us getting on Samsung’s case again (something that they don’t exactly make hard to do) here’s what the BBC said on the matter:
In this latest twist of the scandal that’s been rocking South Korea for weeks, prosecutors are investigating allegations that Samsung might have provided €2.8m euros ($3.1m, £2.5m) to a company co-owned by Ms Choi and her daughter, to bankroll the daughter’s equestrian training in Germany.
Prosecutors are also reported to have raided the offices of the Korea Equestrian Federation and the Korea Horse Affairs Association.
Ms Choi was arrested on 3 November and charged with fraud and abuse of power.
It seems that Choi allegedly “pushed” companies to donate to, “donate millions of dollars to foundations she controlled.” With a research firm called Chaebul.com discovering that Samsung donated 20.4 billion won ($17.9 million) to the two foundations, the most out of the other large South Korean companies.
Note: it doesn’t say which other Korean firms might be caught up in all this!
Now Samsung is coming under scrutiny yet again with the report of another phone model, the J5, exploding in France leading to speculation that this might not be the end of recalls and woes for Samsung.
Meanwhile the company has been forced into a position where it has had to publish an apology in a number if US publications to try to restore some confidence in its products. But it seems that apology has now bled into Europe as well with YH Eom, president and CEO of Samsung Europe stating in a blog that:
“We recognize that we have not lived up to your expectations, or our own high standards. For this we are truly sorry,”
“On behalf of all our employees across Europe, we are truly sorry, and grateful for your ongoing support. We will listen to you, learn from this and act in a way that allows us to win back your trust,”
Which is very similar in tone and language to that of the US letter of apology. At least Samsung have aknowledged that they screwed up and are sorry, how genuine that apology is, who knows. What we do know is that Samsung’s reputation has taken a beating the past few months.
Is it enough to take down Samsung? We really don’t know but there does seem more concern over that actually being a possibility than there was, even after the Note 7 fiasco. But add on the washing machine disaster, pile on the corruption debacle then the possibility of more exploding batteries and who know, maybe it might be enough.
There again, there has been mention that South Korea isn’t happy with the huge family controlled corporations in the country with calls to break them up so, that may well come to pass also.
But would we buy anything Samsung just now, probably not.
