A local court on Monday cleared Kim Jong-chang, former governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, of charges that he retained stocks without reporting it to the government and attempted to sell them off.

According to the Seoul Central District Court, Kim was indicted last year for hiding 40,000 shares of Asia Trust Co., a real estate trust company, under his friends’ account when he was appointed the chief of the state financial watchdog in 2008. When asked by the prosecutors, he said the stocks belonged to his wife.

Under the Public Servants’ Ethics Law, all high ranking officials should make their property list public. They are banned from retaining stocks of a company that is related to their profession and are bound to sell them or put them into blind trust.

The court said the prosecutors failed to verify whether the 40,000 shares are de facto Kim’s property. “There are good reasons to suspect the inappropriate ownership but no sufficient evidences to confirm them,” Judge Kang Eul-hwan said.

“Even so, retention of such property by the spouses of high ranking officials is not obligatory under the current law,” he added.

(baejisook@heraldcorp.com)