Domestic woes are mounting for Samsung, South Korea's biggest and most profitable business group, recognized as a major global player and market leader in memory chips.

Last month, while Japanese rival Sony was announcing restructuring plans including 10,000 job cuts, Samsung Electronics paraded a 33-billion-dollar expansion plan creating 14,000 new jobs.

The company that emerged from the 1997 Asian financial crisis stronger than ever, toppling the Hyundai group as South Korea's top corporate performer, should have been basking in glory and applause.

Instead, the announcement only succeeded in temporarily deflecting public attention away from a tangle of troubles that have been brewing around the company for months.

A major difficulty for the corporate giant that accounted for nearly 20 percent of all South Korean exports last year has been its battle against a government-backed drive to limit the power of top conglomerates.