Chaebol of South Korea's top conglomerates has decreased from 2012 to 2015. Not only did their profits stop increasing, but certain chaebols such as LG, have been making losses and losing talent. Some chaebol are one large corporation while others have broken up into loosely connected groups of separate companies sharing a common name. Even in the latter case, each is almost always owned, controlled, or managed by the same family group. South Korea's chaebol are often compared with Japan's keiretsu business groupings, the successors to the pre-war zaibatsu. While the "chaebol" are similar to the "zaibatsu" (the words are cognates,
Chaebol is recognized in South Korea as Liberation Day. This is when the president forgives the chairmen for their infractions in order to ensure they remain in power of their companies. In the rare case that an executive is sentenced to prison, as the CEOs of SK and CJ group were, it is typically a relatively light punishment of up to 4 years depending on the charge. Collusion between members of the chaebol and the government granted preferential statuses to the companies. The chaebol would funnel bribes to politicians and bureaucrats through slush funds and illegal donations. This could help maintain