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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] KT Corp. announced that outside director Cho Seung-ah has lost her position on the board due to a conflict of interest with Hyundai Motor Group, its largest shareholder.
On December 17, KT filed a disclosure with the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) through the DART system, stating that “Outside Director Cho Seung-ah has lost her position in accordance with Article 542-8, Paragraph 2 of the Commercial Act.”
Cho’s resignation is retroactively effective from March 26 of last year, the date she assumed the outside director role at Hyundai Steel. As a result, all board resolutions in which Cho participated from that date until now are considered null and void.
KT explained that during the process of reviewing outside director candidates for the company’s upcoming annual general meeting, it was confirmed that Cho’s qualifications as an outside director were invalid under current regulations. Under the Commercial Act, if a company’s largest shareholder is a legal entity, any directors, auditors, executive officers, or employees of that entity are disqualified from serving as outside directors.
Cho was appointed as a KT outside director in June 2023, and in March 2024, she also became an outside director at Hyundai Steel, a subsidiary of Hyundai Motor Group. Subsequently, following the partial sale of KT shares by the National Pension Service in March 2024, Hyundai Motor became KT’s largest shareholder in April 2024, rendering Cho ineligible to hold her KT outside director position concurrently.
A key issue is that the KT Board’s Nomination Committee, which included Cho, approved former Head of Enterprise Division Park Yoon-young as a final candidate for the next CEO on the previous day. KT stated that Cho did not participate in the interviews of the three candidates, including Park.
Nevertheless, given that a director who had lost eligibility was involved in procedures related to CEO selection, questions regarding the legitimacy of the board’s decision are inevitable.
Alphabiz Reporter Paul Lee(hoondork1977@alphabiz.co.kr)
