Former Lotte Holdings vice chairman Shin Dong-joo, the eldest son of Lotte Group founder Shin Kyuk-ho, has refused to disclose personal information in a document specifying the conglomerate’s governance structure submitted to a watchdog, industry sources said. 

The Fair Trade Commission requested the document in its attempt to raise understanding of the retail giant’s murky governance structure, revealed amid a family feud involving the group founder and his two sons Shin Dong-joo and Shin Dong-bin.

The latest development is seen as part of the firm’s attempts to make its governance structure more transparent through reforms. The founder’s second son and Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin has pushed for the reform measures.

“Shin Dong-Ju, the first son, disapproved of the idea of revealing anything that involves his privacy, so we reported what we know to the FTC excluding some facts about his stakes in affiliates,” an official from Lotte said.

On July 31, the FTC requested information from the firm, including founder Shin Kyuk-ho and his family members’ shareholdings in Lotte affiliates. It also asked Lotte to reveal its major shareholders and the executives of each unit.

The authority’s priority is on the ownership structure of Lotte Holdings, the Japan-based holding company of Lotte Group and Kojyunsya, which owns one third of stakes in the holding company.

According to a recent report provided by Lotte Group, Kojyunsya, a small packaging company in Japan, is a family-owned company. The group founder, his second and former wife Hatsuko Shigemitsu and their two sons Shin Dong-joo and Shin Dong-bin hold around 99 percent of all stakes. 

But it is still unclear how much each family member shares the ownership of the shrouded company.

If the provided documents fail to meet the FTC’s expectations, Lotte could be fined under current fair trade laws, the watchdog said. 

By Suk Gee-hyun (monicasuk@heraldcorp.com)