A sub-committee of the South Korean National Assembly Tuesday decided to summon Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee for questioning about allegations of corruption and management irregularities.

The decision to summon Lee, one of the most influential conglomerators in the country, was reached during a plenary session of the Finance and Economy Committee on Tuesday afternoon,reported South Korean Yonhap News Agency.

But it is uncertain whether Lee will appear before the parliamentary summons, since he left Seoul earlier this month for the United States and has been staying there.

Local media last week reported Lee has moved from Houston in the US state of Texas to an undisclosed location in the United States.

"Samsung Chairman Lee will be asked to appear before the Assembly Finance and Economy Committee on Oct. 10 to testify about how to cover huge losses left by the bankruptcy of Samsung Motors," said the committee's spokesman Song Young-kil.

"Samsung's contribution to the national economy is certain to be enormous. But that should not allow Samsung to stay outside legal jurisdiction," Song said.

Lawmakers on the committee said the Samsung chairman will be intensively questioned about the group's reluctance to pay for Samsung Motors' losses.

They also said Lee could also face questioning about a number of Samsung's governance and management irregularities, including illegal stock holdings by the group's financial units and opaque father-to-son wealth transfers.

Samsung Motors Inc. went bankrupt in 1999 over mounting bad loans of a total of 2.45 trillion won (2.4 billion US dollars). Samsung Motors was taken over by French automaker Renault SA in 2000 and renamed Renault Samsung Motors Co.

On Monday, creditors of Renault Samsung Motors Co. said they will file a lawsuit against the carmaker's former parent Samsung Group next month to retrieve debts left by the automaker.

The South Korean second richest man left the country for the United States amid simmering corruption charges against the group for past dealings.

The Samsung Group's corruption allegations erupted in July when local television network MBC broadcast reports claiming Samsung had provided large sums of illegal campaign funds to two presidential candidates in the 1997 election.

Source: Xinhua