... or something different about Korean administration which makes it more immune to corruption and allows it to report effectively batteries failures ?
The idea that a trillion dollar corporation has sufficient lobbyists/PR people in western countries to cover up bad news up to a certain level seems reasonable.
Glad someone else mentioned it. I was going to say that out of most developed nations, Korea has to be in or near the top spot for corruption. All countries have their flavor of corruption but the chaebol structure is unique and anecdotally it feels like every leader of Korea has eventually been connected to one of the chaebols.