The prison sentence handed this month to the daughter of Korean Air’s chairman for an onboard tantrum over the serving of macadamia nuts reflected the courts’ increasingly stern approach to South Korea’s most powerful business dynasties.
Now some in the country’s parliament are pushing for new laws targeting the families controlling the chaebol business groups, emboldened by an increase in popular scepticism towards the companies that drove the nation’s economic growth.
“Illegal acts by chaebol families are happening frequently,” says Park Young-sun, a lawmaker who has secured significant parliamentary support for rules that would allow the confiscation of profits resulting from breach of trust or embezzlement.