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| Witnesses called to testify at the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee's audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT take an oath at the National Assembly building in Seoul, Monday. From front row left are Kakao founder Kim Beom-su, Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon and Naver founder Lee Hae-jin. Yonhap |
SK chairman appears at Assembly audit in evening
By Park Jae-hyuk
The founders of Kakao and Naver, as well as the chairman of SK Group, made public apologies during the last session of this year's National Assembly audit, for the inconvenience caused by a fire on Oct. 15, which damaged the servers of Kakao and Naver based inside SK C&C's building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
"I apologize for causing inconvenience to our service used by almost everyone in this country," Kakao founder Kim Beom-su, who leads the company's Future Initiative Center, said at Monday's audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT. "As we were aware of the importance of data centers, we began investing in our data centers from 2018. However, we were still not ready."
This was the first time for the Kakao founder to apologize for the longest-ever disruption in Kakao's overall services.
He appeared at the National Assembly audit as a witness with Kakao CEO Hong Eun-taek, who held a press conference last Wednesday to apologize to the public. The CEOs of KakaoBank and Kakao Pay also appeared at the National Policy Committee's audit of the financial authorities that day.
Kim told lawmakers that his company is considering compensating losses suffered by users of its free services, as soon as it finishes collecting user data.
Rep. Jung Chung-rae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) and Rep. Her Eun-a of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), however, criticized Kakao for its lukewarm stance about compensating free service users, attributing the company's huge profits to its large number of users.
Naver founder Lee Hae-jin, who serves as the company's global investment officer, also apologized for temporary disruptions in his company's services. He appeared at the audit with Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon.
"Although our employees restored the services immediately, we will do our best to minimize inconvenience for our users," Lee said.
SK C&C CEO Park Sung-ha, who made a public apology once again, vowed to prevent a recurrence of similar accidents.
"We plan to talk with SK Group about compensation plans," he said.
According to the CEO, however, his company has yet to talk with Kakao about compensation.
The two companies have been in blame game over who is responsible for the cause of the fire. According to industry officials, SK C&C hired the nation's largest law firm, Kim & Chang, to undertake litigation, while Kakao hired Yulchon and Bae, Kim & Lee.
Rep. Yoon Young-chan of the DPK claimed that SK C&C should take more responsibility than Kakao for this accident, saying that the building's design was the main cause of the server outage.
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| SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who was called as a witness to testify at the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee's audit of the Ministry of Science and ICT, takes an oath at the National Assembly building in Seoul, Monday. Yonhap |
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who appeared at the audit in the evening, apologized to customers who suffered inconveniences, as well as to the tenants of the SK C&C building.
"I feel responsible for the blackout," he said. "Regarding compensation for the tenants, we will have conversations with them, so as to sincerely support them as soon as possible."
The chairman had initially refused to appear at the audit, citing his participation in SK Group's forum with Japanese businesspeople, apparently mindful of potentially negative impact on his efforts to support the southern port city of Busan's bid to host the World Expo 2030. Chey is co-chair of the World Expo 2030 Busan Bid Committee.
After lawmakers criticized his absence, however, he eventually decided to wrap up the forum earlier and appear at the audit.
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