Kyobo Life Insurance said Friday it has requested the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (Pcaob) punish three accountants at Deloitte Anjin for colluding to inflate the price of a put option exercised by its investors.
Pcaob is a non-profit organization that regulates the audits of publicly traded companies to minimize risk.
The request was made amid a legal battle between Kyobo Life Insurance and Affinity Equity Partners over a put option it tried to exercise on the insurance company’s stocks in 2018.
Together with three other private equity firms in a consortium, Affinity Partners in 2012 acquired 24 percent of Kyobo Securities Insurance previously held by Daewoo International. The consortium tried to exercise a put option in 2015 when Kyobo Life Insurance failed to go public as it had promised.
The put option price was around 400,000 won ($330) apiece, but Kyobo Life Insurance rejected the price, saying it had been inflated.
Deloitte Anjin was responsible for determining the put option price.
The legal battle has put a brake on Kyobo Life Insurance’s initial public offering. The company hopes to complete the IPO in the first half of this year.
BYJINMIN-JI[jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]