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Seoul, Feb 2 (IANS) A special counsel team has questioned the top executive of a Coupang Corp. affiliate over allegations of unpaid severance pay for company employees.

Chung Jong-chul, CEO of Coupang Fulfillment Services (CFS), a logistics subsidiary of Coupang, appeared at the office of special counsel Ann Gweon-seob in the morning to be grilled as a suspect about the company's severance pay dispute.

Chung and his predecessor, Eom Seong-hwan, are suspected of changing the company's employment rules in May 2023 to the disadvantage of its employees who have worked for more than one year and failing to pay their severance pay, reports Yonhap news agency.

Under the revised regulations, daily workers employed for over one year are eligible for severance pay only when they have worked for more than 15 hours per week every week. Previously, they were paid severance, with any weeks when they worked fewer than 15 hours excluded from the total.

In other words, if there is even one time during the employment period when their weekly working hours are fewer than 15 hours, the retirement allowance calculation period is reset.

The current retirement benefits law stipulates that an employee is eligible for severance pay if the continuous employment period is one year or longer and the average weekly working hours over four weeks are 15 hours or more.

The special counsel team has already questioned Eom as a suspect and raided Coupang Corp. and CFS headquarters. The team reportedly seized an internal CFS document that estimates the company could save tens of billions of won by changing its employment rules.

Earlier, the interim CEO of Coupang underwent 12 hours of intensive police questioning over allegations of destruction of evidence linked to a massive data breach at the e-commerce company.

Harold Rogers emerged from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Saturday, declining to answer reporters' questions on whether he admitted to the charges or intended to leave the country, reports Yonhap news agency.

Rogers faces accusations of obstructing official investigations into the breach estimated to have affected nearly 33 million users. Coupang had independently announced that data from only 3,000 accounts was leaked, a figure authorities dispute.

Police, who suspect more than 30 million accounts were affected, are investigating the reliability of Coupang's internal probe. The government has criticised the company's findings as one-sided.

—IANS

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