Ex-Pigeon CEO accuses chairman of assault

Pigeon, the nation’s largest fabric conditioner maker, has been rocked by an assault involving one of its former CEOs and its autocratic chairman.

While the ex-CEO blamed the chairman as the culprit and revealed the dirty laundry of the closed corporation, the management is keeping tight-lipped about all the allegations.

According to Seoul, Gangnam Police, 55-year-old Lee Eun-wook, former CEO of the company, was assaulted by two masked man on his way home in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul, on Monday evening. Lee said the men were waiting for him at the entrance of his apartment and beat him severely, requiring him to be hospitalized for three weeks.

Lee claimed that company chairman Lee Yoon-chai, who fired him three months ago, orchestrated the violence.

Lee was scouted by the company in February to increase its market dominance. He had reportedly showed some progress but in less than a month, the two Lees were mired in friction and he was fired by the board for spending too much on staff training.

Lee Eun-wook, former vice CEO of Yuhan Kimberly, filed a suit against the 77-year-old chairman for reversal of the dismissal.

Lee Eun-wook claimed that management kept a fraudulent accounting system to raise slush funds for the chairman’s family. While he had served for the company for less than four months, he had spotted more than 400 million won in unidentified funds which he claimed were raised under suspicious circumstances.

“The violence was more of a threat,” he said to the Hankook Ilbo daily. “After I left the company, three other executives of the companies were laid off and one of them received phone calls from an unidentified man on Tuesday warning of my attack and telling him to be silent,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The company denied its involvement in the assault. It also denied embezzlement and all other allegations about possible irregularities.

The police said they will examine the surveillance camera films to trace the who is behind the attack.

By Bae Ji-sook  (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)