To apologise for crimes you claim you never committed is odd enough. Then to scatter cash around as a token of repentance invites questions about your motives. Yet such behaviour is catching on fast among companies that get into hot water in South Korea.

The latest exponents are Hyundai Motors and Lone Star, a US private equity fund. The former is accused of bribing politicians, the latter of buying a Korean bank at an artificially low price and of evading taxes. While denying the charges, they nonetheless chose last week to say sorry by making "goodwill" public donations totalling $1.9bn (£1bn), including a $767m downpayment by Lone Star on taxes it insists it does not owe.