ACRC selected five major public interest whistleblowing cases such as Hyundai Motor and Kia Motor’s recall of 24,000 vehicles

December 12, 2017

Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission

The Republic of Korea

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission(ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) announced on December 28 that it selected 2017 five major public interest whistleblowing cases directly related to people’s daily lives or with a huge social impact out of the 1,362 cases reported to the Commission in accordance with the Act on the Protection of Public Interest Whistleblowers.

By types, the selected cases are unauthorized medical practice (health), sales of cars with safety defects (safety), illegal disposal of construction waste (environment), imports of hemp seeds containing hallucinogenic compound (consumer interests), and sales and imports of substandard adult diapers (fair competition).

This year the ACRC received especially large number of public safety-related reports, the largest among the reported cases, with 479 cases (35.2%). Among them was the whistlebowing of auto mobile defects of Hyundai Motor and KIA Motors which lead to the recall of 24,000 vehicles on June 2017.

<2017 statistics of public interest whistleblowing cases reported to the ACRC>

The second largest number of reports was made on the area of health at 431 cases (31.6%). A whistleblower revealed that a medical technologist who did not have a medical practitioner licence and radiologist technologist license gave an injection and shoot an x-ray to patients and the head of the hospital overlooked the fact. Procedures to suspend the head of the hospital and the operation of the hospital are now under way.

For health area, a total of 173 whistleblowing cases (13.1%) were reported. A construction waste disposal business abandoned 18,000 tons of waste asphalt concrete illegally. He was fined 200,000 Won of penalty surcharge and 2 million Won of administrative fine.

Waste asphalt concrete contains heavy metals, oil, and carcinogenic substances, so left abandoned, severely pollutes the environment via air and rain, therefore required to be stored in pursuant to the Construction Waste Recycling Promotional Act

As for consumer interests area, a business entity was accused for importing unpeeled hemp seeds containing hallucinogenic compounds and distributing them on/offline. For fair trade area, substandard adult diapers manufactured in Japan, labeled as Korean products in China, then sold and distributed to nursing houses in Korea. Sales suspension order and discard order were issued. They are the five major public whistleblowing cases of 2017

Director for Public Interest Whistleblowing Inspection & Policy Division of the ACRC said that thanks to reports and monitoring from the people of conscience, the ACRC was able to protect the people from acts infringing public interests occuring at every corner of the society. He added that going forward, the ACRC will prioritize protection of public interest whistleblowers in its handling public interest violation reports in close cooperation with competent authorities.

Anyone can make a public interest violation report on the ACRC website or public interest violation/corruption report website. Reporter’s identity is protected to the fullest and a maximum of 2 billion Won of monetary rewards is provided to the reporters.