SEOUL, September 08 (AJP) - A shareholder group said it will file an additional criminal complaint against Samsung Electronics' entire board and executives of a company labor union over performance bonuses, widening a legal dispute over the chipmaker's profit-linked compensation scheme.
The Korea Shareholders Alliance said it plans to submit the complaint to the National Office of Investigation on Wednesday at 10 a.m. outside the agency's headquarters in Seoul.
The group plans to accuse all Samsung Electronics board members and executives of the Samsung Group Super Enterprise Union's Samsung Electronics branch of complicity in breach of trust under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes.
The latest action expands an earlier complaint filed against Samsung co-CEOs Jun Young-hyun and Roh Tae-moon over a wage agreement reached in May. That case has been assigned to the Gyeonggi Nambu Provincial Police Agency.
The shareholder group argues that linking employee bonuses to a fixed percentage of operating profit amounts to a distribution of corporate profits that should require shareholder approval, rather than being determined through collective bargaining.
It also claims union officials who helped design and implement the agreement should share responsibility with board members involved in subsequent decisions to use treasury shares for employee compensation.
No court or investigative authority has determined that the wage agreement or Samsung's use of treasury shares violated the law.
The dispute traces back to wage negotiations earlier this year involving several Samsung labor unions.
Donghaeng Union, whose membership is concentrated in Samsung's Device eXperience (DX) division, withdrew from a joint bargaining group before a tentative agreement was reached, saying the interests of DX employees were not being adequately represented.
Samsung and the remaining unions reached a tentative agreement on May 20, a day before a planned strike.
Under the deal, employees in the Device Solutions (DS) division, which oversees Samsung's semiconductor business, became eligible for a new special performance bonus funded with 10.5 percent of the division's operating profit and paid entirely in Samsung shares after taxes.
Employees in DX and other eligible divisions were instead offered Samsung shares worth 6 million won ($4,300) per person.
The agreement was formally approved on May 27 following votes by members of the participating unions.
The differing compensation schemes fueled discontent among DX employees and intensified divisions among Samsung's labor groups.
Donghaeng held rallies at Samsung's Suwon campus in July and near its Seocho headquarters in Seoul in August, demanding additional compensation for DX employees and a company-wide performance bonus pool.
Samsung, meanwhile, began implementing the May agreement.
In July, the company approved the disposal of 1.08 million treasury shares to provide stock compensation to 49,345 employees in the DX division and its CSS business team.
Samsung followed in August with a decision to acquire about 15 trillion won ($10.8 billion) worth of its own shares for employee stock compensation, including special performance bonuses for DS employees.
The shareholder group argues that the May agreement and subsequent share transactions harmed Samsung and its shareholders, and is seeking to have the latest complaint investigated together with its earlier case.
The group has also filed a separate complaint against Labor Minister Kim Young-hoon over his role in brokering the May wage agreement, arguing that performance bonuses should not have been treated as a subject of collective bargaining.
It plans to call on investigative authorities on Wednesday to accelerate that investigation and to urge the Major Crimes Investigation Agency, scheduled to launch in October, to pursue alleged corporate breach-of-trust cases without political or external interference.
The group also opposes moves to abolish or narrow the scope of the criminal breach-of-trust offense, arguing that it serves as an important safeguard for shareholders.
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