The screenings involved employees of Korea Land & Housing Corp. (LH) and the Korea Authority of Land & Infrastructure Safety in Jinju, South Gyeongsang Province. According to reports, Mirae Asset Securities paid the cinema rental costs because the two institutions are clients of the brokerage for retirement-pension services.
The arrangement has triggered a police complaint. Former Seoul city councilor Lee Jong-bae filed a complaint on Sept. 30 alleging possible violations of South Korea’s anti-graft law and bribery provisions involving Mirae Asset, LH and the safety authority.
Lee argued that if the payment was provided in connection with financial dealings between the brokerage and the public institutions, it could raise legal questions under the anti-corruption framework. Those allegations remain subject to investigation and should not be treated as findings of wrongdoing.
Mirae Asset Calls It Customer Marketing
Mirae Asset Securities has said the screening was not connected to political purposes or the specific content of the movie.
The company described group movie screenings as part of its normal marketing activities for retirement-pension customers, saying it had previously offered similar events involving other major films.
The brokerage also said it would review its operating standards to prevent customer events from creating unnecessary misunderstandings.
Why the Timing Matters
The controversy arrives as Mirae Asset is already facing heightened attention over single-stock leveraged ETFs and ETNs introduced in South Korea earlier this year.
The products, launched May 27, provide roughly twice the daily return of individual stocks such as Samsung Electronics and SK hynix. Mirae Asset Securities introduced two single-stock leveraged ETNs, while eight asset-management companies launched 16 ETFs.
The products subsequently became the subject of intense debate over investor protection and market volatility. Financial authorities announced additional measures in July, while the Financial Services Commission has defended the regulatory procedures used in developing the framework.
Mirae Asset itself has warned investors that single-stock leveraged products can magnify both gains and losses and carry risks including concentration risk, negative compounding effects and differences between market prices and net asset value.
Political Pressure Adds Another Layer
The leveraged-product controversy has also moved into South Korea’s political arena ahead of the National Assembly’s audit.
The People Power Party has called for former presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom and Mirae Asset Group Chairman Park Hyun-joo to appear as witnesses concerning the introduction of single-stock leveraged ETFs. Other lawmakers have disputed the proposed witness list, leaving the issue at the center of political disagreements over the upcoming audit.
For Mirae Asset, the film-screening complaint therefore arrives against a much broader backdrop of scrutiny involving financial products, regulatory decisions and relationships with institutional customers.
Whether the movie-screening arrangement violated any law will ultimately depend on the relevant investigation and legal findings. For now, Mirae Asset maintains that the event was a conventional retirement-pension customer marketing activity.
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