Texas-based fund charged with price-fixing; choice to extradite will be in U.S. hands
The Seoul District Court issued a warrant on November 16 to detain two executives of U.S. private fund Lone Star, in connection with the ongoing investigation into possible price-fixing during Lone Star’s merger and acquisition of Korea Exchange Bank’s credit card company in 2003. Prosecutors said they would take steps to extradite the two men, vice chairman Ellis Short and general counsel Michael Thompson, to South Korea. However, the extradition request process is a lengthy one. The prosecution will first deliver to South Korea’s Justice Ministry its intention to extradite the Lone Star executives. The ministry will then send a request to the U.S. Justice Department, including investigatory findings translated into English. If the U.S. Justice Department agrees to the findings after reviewing the reports, it will send the case to a U.S. state or federal court. If the court also decides the two executives should be extradited to South Korea, the final decision rests on the U.S. secretary of state. So far, eight months was the shortest duration from request to extradition in a U.S.-to-Korea case. A ministry official said that the Lone Star case may take more time, because the lengthy investigation reports will need to be thoroughly reviewed at each decision-making level.The U.S. Justice Department can reject the extradition request before it even sees the inside of a U.S. courtroom. In addition, the related accord between South Korea and the U.S. has not had an extradition enforcement rule since December 1999, and since then only two U.S. nationals have been sent to South Korea to face charges. According to the Justice Ministry, as far as records go back, the Korean government has requested 38 extraditions from the U.S., with 16 granted.
