Shocking: Samsung Electronics Union Chairman Choi Seung-ho Paid 400 Million Won in Union Dues via Personal Card

The current Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics' largest labor union has announced plans to request an investigation by law enforcement agencies, alleging various irregularities in Chairman Choi Seung-ho's execution of union dues.
Following a contract with a company owned by the Chairman's father-in-law, the current controversy centers on credit card benefits and points accumulated during the purchase of resort memberships and department store goods worth hundreds of millions of won.
Lee Song-yi, Vice Chairman of the Samsung Electronics Supra-Enterprise Union, abruptly released accounting data, receipts, KakaoTalk conversations, and audio recordings today (16th).
The first issue raised by Vice Chairman Lee is the resort memberships purchased with union dues.
The total amount paid as the first installment for two separate contracts was 235.2 million won.
Vice Chairman Lee claims that this amount was paid using Chairman Choi's personal credit card.
She argued that the union ledger contains no record of the benefits, such as mileage, that would have been generated by this payment, and asserted that it is necessary to verify who actually received these accumulated benefits. She also disclosed department store purchase records exceeding 100 million won.
According to the data released by Vice Chairman Lee, receipts for union supplies purchased at the Lotte Department Store in Dongtan totaled approximately 112.29 million won.
The receipts displayed L.POINT information under a name where the first character is 'Choi' and the last character is 'ho' ('Choi * ho').
Including such instances, Vice Chairman Lee estimated the total scale of union expenditures where benefits generated during the payment process may have been accumulated by an individual to be 425.96 million won.
However, it has not yet been confirmed whether the points or mileage were actually credited to Chairman Choi personally, or if they were used for personal purposes.
Vice Chairman Lee further claimed that it is necessary to investigate other matters, such as contracts with a company operated by the Chairman's father-in-law, purchasing more goods than planned, and circumstances involving payments made to relatives for vehicle usage.
She stated, "The more an expenditure was directly handled by the Chairman, the harder it was to obtain supporting documentation," and announced that she would request an investigation by law enforcement agencies, attaching all original copies of the released data.
In response, Chairman Choi refuted the allegations, stating that the contract with his father-in-law's company was the result of comparing prices, quality, and delivery schedules among multiple vendors, and that he received no financial benefit from it.
Regarding the resort memberships, he explained that the execution was legitimate and had undergone an external audit.
Chairman Choi stated that he is considering legal action against the dissemination of false information surrounding him.
(Reporting: Kim Min-jung, Video Editing: Kim Ki-hyun, Design: Lee Su-min, Production: Digital News Department)
Reporter Kim Min-jung compass@sbs.co.kr