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Photo = HYBE |
[Alpha Biz= Reporter Kim Jisun] During the parliamentary audit by the Environment and Labor Committee, it was revealed that HYBE significantly underreported its annual revenue, leading to a reduction in plastic waste disposal fees. HYBE has since clarified that the reduced revenue figure was due to a reporting error, not intentional misreporting.
On October 24, Representative Park Jeong of the Democratic Party, a member of the National Assembly’s Environment and Labor Committee, disclosed that HYBE underreported its revenue by 1,000 times when submitting data for waste fees. As a result, the company paid approximately half of the required waste disposal fee, avoiding around 125.12 million KRW.
According to the Korea Environment Corporation, HYBE reported revenue of just 21.78 billion KRW in 2023, a significant underestimation compared to its actual revenue of 2.178 trillion KRW. This resulted in HYBE being charged a waste fee of 149.64 million KRW, about half of the 275.83 million KRW it should have paid, given the company's plastic waste generation of 1,397 tons.
HYBE addressed the issue, stating that the initial underreporting in May 2024 was due to a "unit error" during data entry. The error led to the reduced waste fee calculation, which HYBE paid. Upon discovering the mistake, the Korea Environment Corporation issued an additional fee notice in October, which HYBE promptly paid by the October 22 deadline.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
