Posted August. 21, 2008 06:31,
Prosecutors indicted yesterday former KBS President Jung Yun-joo for breach of trust, as he is alleged to have caused his network billions of won in losses.
Jung is accused of intentionally dropping a tax refund appeal in January 2006 to minimize a deficit of 80 billion won, causing financial harm to the company.
Had he continued the lawsuit, prosecutors said, KBS would have received 244.8 billion won -- 176.4 billion won in principal and 68.4 billion won in accrued interest payments. Jung, however, settled for 55.6 billion won, costing the company 189.2 billion won.
The KBS union in 2005 urged Jung to resign as the network suffered from snowballing deficits since 2004. Prior to the unions confidence vote, Jung signed an agreement saying he would resign in the fourth quarter if a deficit occurred again.
After signing the agreement, he agreed to settle the appeal for back pay of 45.9 billion won in corporate tax with accrued interest payments in December 2005.
Prosecutors said Jung dropped the appeal to turn the companys fiscal 2005 deficit back into the black and, thus appease the union and get reelected in the April 2006 shareholders meeting.
In a briefing, the lead prosecutor in the probe said, We have gone through case law and instant records. We are confident of getting a guilty verdict.
Jungs defense team, however, said, The indictment is erroneous in procedure and substance.