Deputy chief of Korean watchdog cleared

Kim Jung-Hoe, a deputy chief of South Korea's financial regulator, the Financial Supervisory Service, has been cleared by a court of receiving bribes from a businessman.

Jung-Hoe was arrested in January on suspicion of receiving 235m won from the businessman six years ago, and accused of the illegal leaking of financial data. In addition he was accused of using his influence to help Kim Heung-Ju, the former head of a department store in Seoul, in his attempts to take over a mutual savings bank