South Korea's Supreme Court has overturned a lower court's ruling that Paul Yoo, former head of Lone Star's Korean operation, was not guilty of stock price manipulation in relation to a unit of Korea Exchange Bank . The decision comes less than a week ahead of an expected ruling by Korean regulators on whether to approve the U.S. private equity fund's $4.1 billion sale of a 51 percent stake in KEB to Hana Financial Group . The regulators declined to comment whether the court ruling will have any impact on its expected review of the deal. Analysts and media commentators have earlier said they expect the deal to go through because Korea wants an end to the long-running saga. According to a Thursday verdict by the Supreme Court, Yoo breached securities exchange laws by spreading rumours of a capital writedown of KEB's former credit card unit to allow the bank to buy it at below-market prices and to avoid dilution of Lone Star's stake in the merged company.
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