Zalman Tech, a legendary maker of cooling solutions and other devices, has filed for bankruptcy. The company had to file for insolvency protection in South Korea because its parent company Moneual took loans it could not eventually repay by using fabricated export data. The destiny of Zalman is unclear. Zalman was established in 1999 and initially focused purely on coolers for microprocessors and graphics cards.

CSA Czech Airlines said that its key shareholder Korean Air Lines Ltd. has agreed to inject fresh capital into the country’s flagship carrier as it seeks to overcome its current financial struggles, The Wall Street Journal Emerging Europe blog reported. “The offered sum is within expectations of CSA laid out in the company’s restructuring plan,” CSA Czech Airlines’ spokesman Daniel Sabik told the Wall Street Journal Thursday, referring to the required maximum financing needs that in September were estimated at about $20 million.

Korea's leading robot vacuum cleaner manufacturer Moneual has filed for court receivership after failing to pay bonds worth 500 billion won ($474.1 million) that matured last week, The Korea Times reported. The Suwon District Court will soon decide whether to approve its request. Major creditors include the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, the Korea Development Bank and the Industrial Bank of Korea.

South Korea's No. 3 smartphone maker, Pantech Co., which has been under court receivership, is now up for sale on Wednesday, in a desperate move to get the company back on its feet, the Yonhap News Agency reported. The latest development came as the Seoul Central District Court gave its nod to a plan by Pantech creditors led by the Korea Development Bank to sell the company, a month after it commenced the troubled firm's court receivership program. Sale manager Samgjong KPMG will accept bids from potential buyers until 3 p.m. on Oct. 7.

South Korea’s competition watchdog is investigating the country’s four largest commercial banks over possible interest rates collusion, adding to a growing list of probes globally into the alleged rigging of various financial prices and benchmarks, the Financial Times reported. The Fair Trade Commission sent inspectors to Kookmin Bank, Woori Bank, Shinhan and Hana Bank this week to look into data related to setting interest rates, officials at each of the banks said on Wednesday.

Cash-strapped South Korean mobile-phone maker Pantech Co. filed for court receivership Tuesday after its latest flagship smartphone failed to take off, The Wall Street Journal reported. The company, in which Qualcomm Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. are major foreign shareholders, has been relying heavily on the South Korean market to sell its phones, where rivals like Samsung and LG Electronics Inc. are dominant players. Pantech said it filed for court receivership after months of trying to restructure its debt.

Medium-size South Korean yard Daehan Shipbuilding, which has a huge bulker and products-tanker orderbook involving high-profile owners, has filed for court receivership, TradeWinds reported. The DSME-managed builder’s application to the Gwangju District Court early last week was based on a more than $50m claim, including interest accrued, by a shipowner and involving charter contracts signed by its sister company Daehan Merchant Marine, also known as Daehan Shipping. Hong Kong-based Goldbeam is said to be the company making the claim against Daehan Shipbuilding.

About 19.7 percent of the subsidiaries of Korean conglomerates are with impaired capital, or have a debt ratio of over 400 percent, BusinessKorea reported. According to management evaluation firm CEO Score, out of the 1,418 subsidiaries of the 47 business groups with an asset size of at least 5 trillion won (US$4.94 billion), a total of 279 companies were categorized into a group of marginal firms and subject to cross shareholding restrictions. Out of those, 110 had impaired capital and 169 of them had a debt ratio exceeding 400 percent.

The major shareholder of the South Korean operator of the ferry on which hundreds of high school students drowned in April has applied for receivership, a court said on Monday, Reuters reported. Chonhaiji Co Ltd, a ship block maker and the major shareholder of ferry operator Chonghaejin Marine Company, lodged its application at the Changwon District Court last week, a court official said. Chonghaejin Marine owned the Sewol, which sank on April 16 on a routine journey between the mainland port of Incheon and the holiday island of Jeju.

Approximately one-fourth of listed Korean companies are on the brink of insolvency, BusinessKorea reported. Consulting firm AlixPartners held a press conference on March 4 at the Westin Chosun Hotel in Seoul, saying that about 17 percent of the 1,600 or so companies it examined corresponded to On-Alert or a worse condition as of the end of the third quarter of 2013. AlixPartners used its own Corporate Distress Index, which considers the financial and stock price data of corporate entities, to obtain the analysis result.