Behind the Hyundai Payoff Scandal

Remember the payoff scandal surrounding former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il?

Two years after the landmark meeting, Hyundai admitted that it made a $500 million payout to Kim Jong-il days before the meeting.

According to Korean journalist Shim Jae-hoon, Pyongyang exploited the rivalry in Seoul to host the summit in exchange for a large payoff from Hyundai.

Apparently, the South's Ministry of Unification - supposedly the main administrative channel set up to authorize North-South business deals, including legitimate trade - had consistently been sidestepped.

In the 2003 article, Shim noted that it did not help that Kim Dae-jung had "an imperial style of management."

"(Kim) hogged the entire North Korean agenda, leaving little say to experts outside the Blue House. For the past five years, policy deliberation has been mainly in the hands of chief security adviser Lim Dong-won and chief of staff Park Jie-won. Mr. Park even bypassed the National Intelligence Service in secretly contacting Kim Jong-il's aides."