Double standards!
Lone Star’s donation to Beautiful Foundation touches off debate
By Kim Jae-won
Rep. Kang Yong-seok’s recent criticism of lawyer-turned-activist and Seoul mayor candidate Park Won-soon over taking hundreds of millions of won in donations from Lone Star Funds unveils Korean society’s double standard on foreign companies.
The legislator, who was kicked out of the ruling Grand National Party (GNP) for sexist remarks, rebuked Park for taking 760 million won in donations from the Texan private equity company from 2004 to 2009.
Kang said through a press release last Thursday that the Beautiful Foundation, which Park had led as the residing director, had accepted donations from Lone Star.The release cited the foundation’s financial report.
Lone Starb was not available for comment.
Kang also pointed out that the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a leading civic organization led by Park, heavily criticized Lone Star.
All said, Kang’s point is that Park was involved in a kind of extortion scam — having the civic group go after Lone Star so as to force it to donate to the affiliated “social” store.
“The problem is that Park and the Beautiful Foundation received donations from Lone Star, while The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, which Park also established, criticized the company for acquiring the Korea Exchange Bank,” said Wang An-na, an aid of Kang
The foundation was on the defensive, saying it established a scholarship fund for low-income families titled “Lone Star Blue Star Fund” with only 140 million won in donations from Lone Star in 2003.
Seo Kyung-won, director of the foundation, told The Korea Times the foundation got an additional 370 million won in donations from ordinary people, who joined the fund, so the whole amount reached 510 million won, not the 760 million won, which Kang said.
Moreover, Seo said the foundation returned 90 million won to Lone Star in 2008 after the company was convicted of stock price manipulation at a Seoul district court in 2008, and did not extend its donation contract with the company.
Korean media and the public have criticized foreign companies, especially profitable firms, for not returning some of their profits to local society.
Then, society criticizes both Lone Star and the Beautiful Foundation and its leader Park for giving and receiving donations from a profitable foreign company? How does that make any sense?
Kang’s point is taking donations from a problematic company can soften a social organization’s role to monitor companies. Lone Star’s alleged stock manipulation is still subject to a legal dispute.
Korean society needs to have one position. It can either say that Lone Star should not donate its “dirty” money or the U.S.-based buyout fund must return some of its profits to society.
It is disappointing that Beautiful Foundation’s passive reaction in admitting Lone Star’s donations have some problems.
The foundation returned most of the donations from Lone Star due to questions of morality at the company, but it seems like discrimination against a foreign company because it is unheard-of for a foundation to return money to Korean companies, such as Hyundai Motor and LG, which have had some problems in corporate governance.
Society is not free from criticism. It has different measures for foreign companies and Korean ones.
It often criticizes foreign firms for not getting involved in corporate social responsibility programs here, but when it comes to donations from them, it also asks whether they are “clean” or not.
What’s wrong with the donations? We need to point out foreign companies’ legal problems in the courts if there are any, but should not be afraid of taking donations from them.