EcoPro Group stocks plunge after chairman arrest

EcoPro Group Chairman and Founder Lee Dong-chae [Photo by MK DB]

The stocks of battery materials player EcoPro Group nosedived Thursday on reports that its Chairman and Founder Lee Dong-chae was arrested after the high court sentenced him to two years in prison for violating the country’s capital market act.

Shares of EcoPro Co. plunged 6.78 percent to close at 550,000 won ($413.6) on Thursday after touching as high as 622,000 won earlier in the day before the news about Lee’s arrest broke out.

EcoPro shares are being traded at 544,000 won on Friday morning, down 1.09 percent from a day ago.

Shares of EcoPro BM Co. and EcoPro HN Co. also finished 4.1 percent and 2.21 percent lower, respectively, on Thursday.

The plunge in the stocks came after the Seoul High Court sentenced Chairman Lee to two years in prison for violating the country’s capital market act. It also fined him with 2.2 billion won and charged him with an additional fee of 1.1 billion won.

Lee had been indicted on charges of gaining illegal profits worth 1.1 billion won by purchasing stocks using a borrowed-name account before information related to EcoPro BM‘s long-term supply contracts was registered with the Financial Supervisory Service.

He also faced the charge of selling the stocks between January 2020 and September 2021.

In the first trial, the court found him guilty of most of the charges and sentenced him to three years in prison with five years of probation and a fine of 3.5 billion won. The ruling, however, was overturned in the second trial.