Permanent Special Prosecutor Team for Kwan Bong-kwon and Coupang Raids Ministry of Employment and Labor

[The Financial News] The Permanent Special Prosecutor Team for Kwan Bong-kwon and Coupang, led by Special Prosecutor Ahn Gwon-seob, conducted a search and seizure at the Ministry of Employment and Labor to verify related suspicions.
In a press notice on the 27th, the special prosecutor team stated, "Starting at 10 a.m. today, we began executing a search and seizure and inspection warrant at the Ministry of Employment and Labor’s Sejong Government Complex (including the Labor Standards Policy Division and the Retirement Pension and Welfare Division) and at the Seoul Regional Employment and Labor Office (the office spaces of the search targets within the Smart Work Center)."
The team went on to explain, "The purpose of the search and seizure is to verify various suspicions related to Coupang, including its government relations activities." Coupang Fulfillment Services (CFS), a subsidiary of Coupang, is suspected of having revised its work rules in May 2023 to include retirement benefit provisions unfavorable to workers, in an attempt to avoid paying retirement benefits.
Specifically, at that time CFS obtained approval from the Seoul Eastern District Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor to change the rule from "for daily workers who work for more than one year, only periods with fewer than 15 working hours per week are excluded" to "workers must have worked for more than one year and at least 15 hours per week." Under the new rule, if there was even a single day during the employment period when weekly working hours fell to 15 or fewer, the period for calculating retirement benefits would be reset from that day. This became known as the "retirement benefit reset rule."
The Bucheon Branch Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor later concluded in January last year that the revised work rules adopted by CFS were invalid and referred the case to the prosecution with a recommendation to indict. However, the Bucheon Branch of Incheon District Prosecutors Office decided not to indict, finding no charges. Allegations then arose that there had been external pressure from the branch chief and others in connection with this non-indictment decision, leading to the launch of the special prosecutor team.
Meanwhile, on the 26th, the special prosecutor team summoned former CFS CEO Eom Sung-hwan as a suspect on charges of violating the Act on the Guarantee of Employees' Retirement Benefits and questioned him.
kyu0705@fnnews.com Kim Dong-gyu Reporter