S.Korean Navy Officers under Probe for Leaking Warship Info to Hyundai

Three South Korean Navy officers are being investigated over a suspected leak of classified warship information to Hyundai Heavy Industries.

The officials secretly filmed documents related to a project to build an indigenous Aegis-equipped destroyer in 2014. The classified information was later allegedly shared with Hyundai to give the shipbuilder an advantage in winning the contract, Yonhap reported citing government sources.

The military authorities have been looking into the case since 2018 and around a dozen Hyundai Heavy officials are also under investigation by the civilian prosecution, according to the officials.

The Korea Destroyer Next Generation (KDDX) project to locally build 6,000 ton-class warships was launched in 2018. Deadline to finish design and begin construction is set for 2023 and 2024 respectively. The project is to be completed by late 2020s.

Two of South Korea’s biggest shipbuilders are competing to bag the KDDX contract with their own designs- Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) and Hyundai Heavy Industry (HHI).  Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) will award basic design contract to one of them by year-end.

DSME completed their conceptual design in 2019. In its baseline configuration, DSME’s KDDX has a length of 155 meters, a beam of 18 meters and a draft of 9.5 meters for a displacement of 8,000 tons. It features 48x VLS cells forward, 16x VLS cells aft, 16x anti-ship missiles and 2x K-DAGAIE NG decoy launchers.

HHI unveiled an entirely new design featuring an inverted bow in this year.