The European Union has agreed to significantly expand its sanctions against Iran over its refusal to freeze its disputed nuclear activities, European diplomats said Thursday.EU foreign ministers are expected to approve the new measures, which will add several subsidiaries of companies already on the sanctions list, at a meeting in Brussels on Monday, the diplomats said.(AFP)

World News May 19, 2011

Korea's national pension fund needs to rigorously exercise its shareholder rights as it is along-term investor with massive assets under management, its headsaid Thursday.Controversy has heated up over whether pension funds should exercise their shareholder rights in the country's family-ownedconglomerates since Kwak Seung-joon, a key presidential aide,brought up the issue last month."Exercising s

May 19, 2011

The financial authorities will soon instruct banks to slash their forward trading, as part of government measures to crack down currency speculation by regulating foreign exchange positions.The Ministry of Strategy and Finance and the Bank of Korea said on Thursday that they have decided to order banks dealing with foreign currency trading to reduce the ceiling of forward trading by about 20 perce

May 19, 2011

The financial watchdog said Tuesday that it is considering penalizing Hyundai Capital and several of its staff for incurring cyber attacks due to negligent internal controls.Those subject to the regulatory sanctions will possibly include several executives, including CEO Ted Chung, of the loan issuance company jointly owned by Hyundai Motor Group and U.S.-based GE Capital, the Financial Supervisor

May 18, 2011

KDB said to be leading potential bidder for September sale of bankThe financial authorities announced Tuesday that the state-controlled Woori Financial Group would be handed over to an investor through a bidding competition by September.The Public Fund Oversight Committee said that it would sell the nation’s largest financial group by assets in a “package deal.” The official announcement came amid

May 17, 2011

Local securities firms are bracing for the possibility of a liquidity crisis brought on by financial woes in the sluggish construction sector.The firms are closely monitoring the progress of a group of savings banks already suffering from overdue “project financing loans” issued to builders.The risk growing in the stock brokerage sector is due to asset-backed commercial papers, a type of securitie

May 17, 2011

Major securities companies are eager to recruit outside directors, mainly from government agencies with investigative power.Their recruitment practices have been regarded as a conventional strategy aimed at lobbying the agencies to minimize fallout from possible internal irregularities.According to sources in the stock brokerage industry, agencies whose former high-ranking officials are moving to

May 16, 2011

Kim should have ordered U.S. fund to sell shares, watchdog official saysKim Seok-dong, the nation’s chief financial regulator, has once again come under public scrutiny for his allegedly irresponsible policy on U.S. Lone Star Funds, the biggest shareholder of Korea Exchange Bank.Following the vague stance he assumed on corruption scandals of regulatory staffers, for which he has yet to offer a det

May 15, 2011

High-ranking officials of the Financial Supervisory Service will likely be subject to a tougher code of conduct and may face dismissal if they fail to meet annual internal assessments, officials said Sunday. Currently, 12 FSS executives, three deputy governors and nine assistant deputy governors, are allowed to maintain their three-year term as long as they do not engage in criminality.“In the wak

May 15, 2011

Volkswagen AG’s Audi luxury-car brand will increase its workforce by 17 percent through 2020 as the manufacturer expands production beyond Germany to meet growing demand in markets such as China and the U.S.“We’re expecting further growth over the long term beyond 2015,” Chief Executive Officer Rupert Stadler said a speech to be delivered today at the annual shareholders meeting in Neckarsulm, Ger

Mobility May 15, 2011

Hyundai Motor may build a network of as many as 1,000 rural outlets and introduce a cheaper small car after losing market share to Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen AG.“We are looking strongly at these markets and want to focus on growing our network there,” Arvind Saxena, the carmaker’s India director for sales and marketing, said in an interview yesterday in New Delhi. He declined to give a timefram

Mobility May 15, 2011