The troubled e-commerce platforms TMON and WeMakePrice have liquidity issues involving over 1 trillion won (US$722.02 million) and there was suspected illegality regarding their payment delay incident, the financial regulator said Tuesday.
Lee Bok-hyun, chief of the Financial Supervisory Service, made the remarks during an emergency parliamentary hearing in the day, stressing that the financial regulator has asked for a prosecution probe into the incident.
The two online marketplaces under the Singapore-based Qoo10 filed for corporate rehabilitation in the Seoul Bankruptcy Court on Monday after failing to make payments to sellers and merchants using their platforms since early July, reportedly due to a liquidity crisis caused by Qoo10’s aggressive merger deals.
“We are yet to specify the exact amount, but there are issues of liquidity and financial soundness worth over 1 trillion won with TMON and WeMakePrice,” Lee said.
Rep. You Dong-soo of the main opposition Democratic Party said the two firms suffere
d around 1.3 trillion won in losses through July.
“We cannot trust the companies given their acts and comments over the course of our probe into the case,” Lee said, calling Qoo10 founder and CEO Ku Young-bae “the boy who cried wolf.”
The authorities are conducting a probe intensively to secure liquidity from the parent firm and it has requested an investigation by prosecutors, which is expected to be launched this week, he added.
The justice ministry imposed an overseas travel ban on Ku and the heads of TMON and WeMakePrice, while the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office set up a special investigation team to look into suspected irregularities related to the incident.
Ku also attended Tuesday’s session and said that he will give up everything he owns to help resolve the liquidity crisis.
But he said he has all but about 80 billion won at his disposal and that he was not sure whether “all 80 billion won could be injected.”
Ku acknowledged in the hearing that Qoo10 had “temporarily” used TMON and We
MakePrice’s capital in its acquisition of global e-commerce platform Wish in February, but that the money has since been returned.
Financial officials here have said the delayed payments by TMON and WeMakePrice are currently estimated to be around 210 billion won and will likely grow further.
Ku said earlier that Qoo10 would secure emergency liquidity by drawing on overseas funds or by disposing of assets and stakes or using them as collateral.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
