The Swiss authorities received requests for information on potential secret bank accounts related to the Korean POSCO, the fourth largest steel producer in the world.
The Swiss Federal Tax Administration has notified the POSCO subsidiary POSCO Engineering and Construction about the request for information on Swiss potential Swiss accounts, Swissinfo reports.
Such a close attention to the company may be due to the alleged “donations” of POSCO to sports funds at the request of Tsoy (Choi) Sun Seel, close friend of the first female president of South Korea Pak Kun Hye. According to the standard procedure, POSCO has ten days to call the representative of Switzerland to receive notifications. The company may also appeal the final decision of the Swiss Federal Tax Administration to provide information on financial transactions.
The former head of POSCO, Kwon Ou-Yun, earlier admitted that he agreed to transfer money to sports funds at the request of Choi (Choi) Sun Seel, but did so under pressure. Other similar Korean companies, such as Samsung and Lotte, were also involved in such transactions. As a result, the scandal led to the impeachment of the president, and on April 6, 2018, the Central District Court of Seoul sentenced Pak Keng Hye to 24 years in prison and a fine of $ 16.8 million (charges: corruption and abuse of authority while in office). Pak denied all charges of wrongdoing.
Kwon announced his resignation from POSCO in April 2018, well ahead of his planned retirement in March 2020. There is a suggestion that his resignation was caused by pressure from the new government.
