[Yonhap News Photo ]
A court has turned down a warrant sought by prosecutors to arrest the former chairwoman of South Korea's largest container carrier Hanjin Shipping who has been accused of using insider information to sell stocks before the company was put under creditor-led restructuring.
In an investigation to determine the validity of a warrant late Tuesday, the Seoul Southern District Court said that evidence was enough to bring charges against Choi Eun-yeong and there was no worry about her flight.
Choi has been accused of selling her stake in Hanjin Shipping to avoid losses but she has insisted the sale was just aimed at paying back her debts.
Hanjin Shipping, the world's ninth container carrier in terms of capacity, has been reeling under a credit crunch aggravated by snowballing debts and falling freight rates. To receive a new bailout, the company is under pressure to step up the sale of non-core assets, lower chartered ship fees and extend the maturity of loans held by non-banking institutions.
In March, Hanjin Shipping, a subsidiary of the Hanjin Group controlled by Cho Yang-ho who also heads South Korea's top carrier Korean Air was put under creditor-led restructuring.
Cho's younger brother had run the shipping company until he died in 2006 and then his wife managed it. In 2014, Korean Air acquired a controlling 33.2 percent stake in Hanjin Shipping.
Like other tycoons who control their family-run conglomerates through a complex web of cross-shareholdings, the Cho family controls 29.8 percent in Hanjin KAL, the group's holding company, which has 31.46 percent in Korean Air.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
