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Published on September 8, 2007

Managing director Kwang Kee Park and general manager Chung Jun Kim were arrested at company's offices on Sathorn Road in the afternoon and later released on bail. Both men declined to comment.

The arrest followed the filing of a complaint by mobile handset distributor SAM Corp, a subsidiary of major handset-distributor TWZ, alleging that the executives had failed to pay money to the company.

According to the complaint, Thai Samsung last November appointed TWZ as its exclusive wholesale distributor of Samsung handsets and said the company would cancel its contract with its three existing distributors at the time.

TWZ then set up a new company, SAM Corp, to become the exclusive wholesale distributor. SAM Corp

had to buy the Samsung handsets from South Korea as

well as the remaining stock of the three former local distributors.

SAM informed the two executives that it had failed to sell all the handsets it had ordered in the first lot because of their high price and low popularity.

However, according to the complaint, Park asked SAM to purchase a new lot of handsets and said his company would later return money to SAM in the form of a marketing budget of US$1 million (Bt34.3 million). However, SAM claims it has yet to receive the money promised.

Thai Samsung senior manager Manatase Annawat said yesterday that both executives denied the charge.

He said the case might stem from some distributors unhappiness about loss of business due to Samsung's recent restructuring of its distribution channel. However, he declined to elaborate.

Telecom Reporters

 The Nation