Korean firms’ annual usage of company credit cards at entertainment establishments including room salons totaled at least 1.4 trillion won ($1.25 billion) on average, the Korea Institute of Public Finance said Sunday. According to the institute’s research report, the nation’s corporate sector paid 1.41 trillion won with their company cards at entertainment spots in 2011. Room salons (or hostess...

The Financial Supervisory Service said Sunday that it issued a “warning” against Ergo Daum Direct, an online auto insurance company, for rigging insurance premium-related figures in an alleged bid to attract more policyholders. Ergo Daum Direct, which is now under the wing of the France-based Axa General Insurance, was also levied fines of 50 million won ($44,600) from the financial regulator. ...

Regulators are poised to impose a ban later this year on joint guarantees on loans extended by secondary financial firms, following the earlier abolishment of the lending practice among commercial banks. Over the past several decades, lenders have demanded that some individuals or smaller businesses submit third-party debt guarantees when applying for loans. Such guarantees have frequently trig...

The Fair Trade Commission vowed to take stern disciplinary measures against conglomerates for irregular business practices during its report to President Park Geun-hye on Wednesday. The antitrust regulator, which has already pledged to crack down on unfair intragroup trading among conglomerate-based affiliates, said it would also introduce the system of class action lawsuits by pushing for a Com...

The Finance Ministry on Tuesday dismissed some local market analysts’ view that the Group of 20 countries recently reached a consensus not to tackle the Japanese yen’s weak position. “The G20 communique (drawn up by finance ministers in Washington, D.C., over the weekend) does not involve any common consent that the members would tolerate the cheap yen,” Finance Ministry’s international finance ...

The Financial Supervisory Service will conduct a regulatory inquiry into KDB Daewoo Securities, a brokerage unit of the state-controlled KDB Financial Group, for the next three weeks. The financial regulator said it has dispatched about 20 inspectors to the Yeouido, Seoul, headquarters of KDB Daewoo Securities, which holds the No. 1 position in Korea’s securities market. This marks the first ti...

Korea’s securities regulators will be entitled to investigate alleged stock manipulation cases with “special criminal authority” under the Park Geun-hye administration’s commitment to weeding out unfair trading. The government unveiled policies Thursday to grant criminal authority to Finance Services Commission investigators monitoring the brokerage industry and some nongovernmental inspectors a...

Short selling, a speculative stock investment technique, has come under the spotlight in the financial market as a pharmaceutical-oriented company CEO recently argued that the firm’s shares were hit by foreign speculators. The Financial Supervisory Service and the Korea Exchange launched their review as to whether there is an urgent necessity to issue a ban on short selling of “each company’s sh...

The Cabinet on Tuesday approved the Finance Ministry’s stimulus package worth 20.3 trillion won ($17.9 billion) to revitalize the sluggish economy and boost exporters hit hard by the weaker yen caused by Japan’s monetary easing. The package highlights economic policymakers’ project to draw a supplementary budget totaling 17.3 trillion won, which marks the second-highest figure in history followi...

Financial regulators pledged to enhance accounting oversight of non-listed big enterprises during its report to the National Policy Committee of the National Assembly on Tuesday. The policy is a development from an earlier movement by the Finance Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service to take stern punitive measures against stock manipulators. “Financial authorities will secu...

The National Pension Service is set to tighten its control on chaebol as the revised bill on the “10 percent rules” will likely pass through the plenary session of the National Assembly soon. The revised bill on the capital market involves financial authorities’ policy to allow the nation’s three major public funds to hold a 10 percent stake or more in a company ― as an exception from other stoc...

Five big enterprises saw their “certification of excellence in fair trade” withdrawn after being named to have engaged in irregular practices including price fixing. The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday that it has downgraded the fair trade assessments on POSCO, POSCO C&C, Samsung Construction & Trade Corp., Hyundai Mobis and Shinsegae. While 27 companies were granted the certification from th...