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Genesis BBQ’s founder and former chairman, Yoon Hong Geun, was charged with violation of the Special Economic Crimes Weighted Punishment Act last month. His case involves a breach of trust because he allegedly moved the company’s money to an organization that he and his family members owned.
As per The Korea Times, the prosectors’ office of the Suwon District revealed on Thursday, Feb. 2, that it indicted the former Genesis BBQ chairman on Jan. 16. He was accused of causing damage to the fried chicken chain by lending billions of Korean won to one of his privately-owned companies called GNS Hinet.
This entity is not in any way related to BBQ thus, the transfer of funds was illegal. The moving of money was said to have occurred between the years 2013 and 2016. Moreover, it was uncovered that the fried chicken company did not collect repayments for the supposed loan.
It was in July 2013 when Yoon and his family launched GNS Hinet. They own a 100% stake in the company and it is not a subsidiary nor an affiliate of Genesis BBQ. Reports stated that this company was sold later after its equity turned completely negative.
The authorities started the investigation on this case in 2021 but were dropped in July of last year. However, the case was revived when bhc chicken company filed an appeal and objected to the dropping of the investigation thus, the prosecution brought Yoon back on trial.
The case started when bhc, Genesis BBQ’s direct competitor, filed a report in April 2021. It alleged that Yoon loaned around KRW8.3 billion or $6.8 million to his private company using BBQ’s money, Business Korea reported.
"This is an unreasonable indictment with no actual victim, no money loss and no societal damage,” an official at BBQ said in a statement in response to the allegations. “Bhc has purposely made this up to hurt its business rival BBQ. The police had already closed this case as it saw it as an incident that happened while BBQ was promoting a new business."
Meanwhile, BBQ said it believes that its founder will not be found guilty at the trials.
