Naver CEO Han Seong-sook apologized on behalf of the company for providing favors to the children of South Korea’s top legal officials including the daughter of former Senior Prosecutor Jin Kyung-joon, who is currently serving jail time for accepting bribes.

Naver shared a public apology from the incumbent CEO on its official blog Naver Diary following news reports that the company had unfairly provided favors and opportunities to Jin’s daughter.

“Naver provided unofficial favors such as a free pass to an internship to the children of select figures. And for this, we sincerely apologize,” Han wrote Wednesday.

“As Naver’s current CEO, I feel a heavy responsibility to run and manage the company in a more transparent manner, she said. “I will take this opportunity to once again review our new management system to have more transparency,” she said.

According to local media reports, former Prosecutor Jin asked then-CEO of Naver Kim Sang-hun to employ his daughter as an intern and to help her prepare a research paper on the Fair Trade Commission’s antitrust regulations in December 2014.

A senior judge at the Supreme Court of Korea also reportedly asked Naver’s former CEO Kim to employ his son as an intern in 2015. Both figures were friends of Kim, who apparently made use of his position to have their requests granted.

Kim, a graduate of Seoul National University Law School and Harvard Law School, worked as Naver’s CEO from 2009 to 2017. He recently became an external board member of local startup Woowa Brothers, which operates Korea’s biggest mobile delivery app Baedal Minjok.

Han Seong-sook became the new CEO of Naver in March this year, pledging to improve the company’s transparency and to win back the public’s trust in the portal website operator.

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)