Too big (a man) to fail
We've seen corporations too big to fail (Boeing comes first to mind), firms that have gotten a break from government authorities in spite of wrongdoing. But now we have a case of a corporate CEO getting a get-out-jail-free card just because he's too important to the national economy.
That's the case with Hyundai chairman Chung Mong-koo who was convicted of embezzling $110 million form the company. A court recently rules that he was too important to the South Korean economy to be put in prison.
According to a Los Angeles Times story ("Hyundai boss too important to be jailed, judges decide", 9/7/2007).
In reversing Chung's sentence, presiding Judge Lee Jae-hong told a packed courtroom in Seoul, "I was unwilling to engage in a gamble that would put the nation's economy at risk," according to the Associated Press.....Hyundai managers say Chung is a hands-on executive, and his absence while he was in jail last year, as well as the turmoil the case caused, held up important projects and decisions.
Let's hope that the precedent does not spread. Jeffrey Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, and John Rigas, along with many another captain of industry might still be in the board room rather than the cell block.
