The Art of Negotiation: Episodes 9-10

by lovepark

A few familiar faces return this week as our silver-hair M&A expert is put to the test. In order to achieve his goal, our hero must accomplish a mission first, but the seemingly simple task turns out to be a much more complicated endeavor than initially thought. As our team learns once again that people and cases come in all shades of gray, they will need to choose who to protect and what to let go.

 
EPISODES 9-10

Chairman Song offers Ju-no a position on the board, and our M&A expert does not skip a beat when asking for a vote. He wants to make the promotion official, and the chairman appears to give his approval as he invites Ju-no to a hike. Rumors spread quickly throughout the company since Bukhansan is synonymous with the chairman’s endorsement. Apparently, the chairman is a deeply superstitious man, and all those decorations and iconography of mountains were chosen deliberately.

On their hike, Chairman Song orders Ju-no to sell one of their subsidiaries – the golf club Green View – and for a test to become a board member, it seems laughably easy. On paper, the club is doing well despite the general sector hitting a slump, and as soon as they release a notice about the sale, an interested buyer shows up on a no-name basis. Everything goes a bit too smoothly for the team, and we soon learn why.

The buyer insists on signing a contract at the club, but when Ju-no and his group arrive for the meeting, the other party is playing a round. If the blatant disrespect felt familiar, you weren’t wrong. Lo and behold, the previous CEO of Sanin Construction Mr. Lee greets Ju-no with his trademark shit-eating grin, and besides him, CFO Ha laughs as if in on a secret. The two act as if their encounter was purely coincidental, but in reality, Chairman Song plans to restart his construction business and has Mr. Lee in mind for the position.

The truth behind this deal, though, remains abstruse to Ju-no who knows Mr. Lee is hiding an ulterior motive but cannot place what exactly. Thus, he decides to move forward with the contract since selling the club is his top priority, and the team begins their due diligence. The only condition Mr. Lee explicitly stated was the dismissal of the current CEO since he will run the club himself – which, unsurprisingly, Green View’s CEO Lee is disappointed to hear. He asks Ju-no for a generous severance package (one billion won to be exact), and while the CEO has been doing a good job, the amount exceeds company guidelines.

As for the other employees, they all get to keep their jobs, and Soon-young holds a presentation to answer their questions about the upcoming sale. Born and raised in the city where Green View operates, our resident attorney is friends with a handful of the employees, including financial manager Jung. His connection to the place, however, may be both a blessing and a curse as his friend’s name gets mentioned in an embezzlement case.

While Min-jung went over the books, she noticed a withdrawal for 100 million won two days ago, and the only people with access to this account are CEO Lee and Manager Jung. Given his relationship with the latter, Soon-young volunteers to meet with her, but she already took the day off and is gone. Despite using his contacts, Soon-young cannot get hold of Manager Jung, and instead, learns about another classmate who broke her arm while working as a caddie at Green View.

Out of the two, Manager Jung was, in fact, guilty, but unlike Soon-young’s worries, she turns herself in to the M&A team, living up to her childhood nickname “justice Jung.” The money was used to pay the settlement fee for the injured caddie, and Manager Jung thinks a year in prison is a fair price to pay for the amount. However, if 100 million won is worth a year, then how much would a billion won be?

With that ominous question casually tossed out, Manager Jung reveals a deeper scam festering behind the scenes at the club. The CEO has been charging caddies a “deposit” for their training period – unsanctioned and unreported – which totals to a billion won. Manager Jung was originally going to use those funds to pay the settlement, and even got permission from every current caddie. When she went to check the account, though, all the money was taken out.

Leading the charge, Manager Jung guides the group back to Green View, and CEO Lee attempts to flee as he sees them enter. There’s only one exit, though, and Ju-no stops the cheapskate CEO and hands him off to Sanin for an internal investigation. While the CEO’s crimes are abundant and heinous, Manager Jung’s case is a bit more complex, and pulling some strings with HR Director Jo, Ju-no and Soon-young write up a statement on her behalf. Unlike CEO Lee who will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, Manager Jung will simply be let go since she returned the stolen funds (the settlement was paid for by Sanin, instead).

Ju-no updates Mr. Lee personally about the case, and at first, all seems well until the latter suddenly requests a complete layoff of all existing employees. He cites that he cannot work with embezzlers, but with no staff, it becomes clear that Mr. Lee has no intentions of running a golf club. As a result, this bizarre condition clues Ju-no in on the chairman’s true test, and when he informs CCO Lee of the situation, his superior advises him to turn a blind eye and focus on his greater goal (aka joining the board).

As the M&A team proceeds with the layoffs – two more employees were involved in the embezzlement – it appears as if our heroes are following the chairman’s plans, but in reality, Ju-no only wants his opponents to think that way. Since Chairman Song’s intentions to restart a construction business breaches the contract they made with Bium D&I (legally, they only have to wait five years, but ethically, they should never re-enter the field), Ju-no decides that the best way to stop a big fish is to use an even bigger one.

Our silver-haired snake passes along this information to Bium CEO and instructs her to hike Bukhansan to manufacture a chance encounter. Aware of the chairman’s idiosyncrasies, Ju-no’s predictions come true, and the Bium CEO runs into Chairman Song and his group – including the ex-CEO of Sanin Construction. She pointedly mentions the suspicious pairing, and the tactics Mr. Lee used to assert his dominance over Ju-no are reflected back to him.

Knowing when to retreat, Chairman Song scraps the construction idea, and as if waiting on the sidelines, Ju-no enters his office. The acquirer requested a full layoff, and Ju-no pretends to seek the chairman’s wisdom on the matter. The chairman tells him to drop the deal, cementing Ju-no’s win but also his loss. With a smirk, Chairman Song tells Ju-no that he isn’t cut out for the board, making it clear that he knows about the meddling.

That evening, Ju-no’s senior visits him at his place and suggests dropping their plans to open a reinvestigation into Jumbo Pharmaceuticals. Their aim was for Ju-no to sit on the board and then make the request, but now that option is moot. With time running out, Ju-no decides to continue their course of action, and the next day, an envelope is delivered to the audit team. They descend on the M&A department like vultures and begin their investigation on Ju-no for market manipulation.

Given the timing of everything, I’m assuming Ju-no is behind this latest development and using himself as bait to catch the real culprit of his brother’s death. It’s a risky move if that turns out to be true, but as multiple characters have pointed out, Ju-no never intended to stay at Sanin long-term. I’m assuming Ju-no is taking this gamble because the statute of limitations must be coming up, so time is of the essence not only for Sanin but for our hero as well. With only a week left, it seems the show will focus on Ju-no in its final hours and reveal what happened all those years ago.

I really enjoy how the show is formatted as a case-by-week story, yet everything that happens is connected. Because Ju-no sold Sanin Constructions, he was ordered to sell Green View, and since the show has already established the underlying issue and relevant characters, just a simple appearance is enough to tell the audience what is happening without going into preambles. It’s also why the conclusion works succinctly because we know Bium’s CEO has more cash power than Sanin, so one scene is enough to signal to both the viewers as well as the characters that this is a losing battle. It also reminds us that Chairman Song might play king inside Sanin, but he isn’t always the most powerful in the room.

Another detail of the show I like is how the creators give nuance to positions and not just characters, which conveys how seats of power can be precarious and merit-based but also undeserving and abusive. People like CCO Lee, Wind CEO, Bium CEO, and the likes who show genuine leadership or innovation exist, but at the same time, there are even more people like CFO Ha, Sanin Construction ex-CEO, and Green View CEO who cut corners and seek personal profit to the detriment of others. That doesn’t mean, however, that everyone in the “working class” is inherently morally superior since the embezzlement case revealed how those in middle management also skim off the top, but the sheer scale of their actions does differentiate the weight of their sins. While the delivery is not exactly subtle, the message is nuanced and adds another layer to the story.

If last week the spotlight was on Min-jung and the week before was for Jin-soo, the Green View case showcased a bit more Soon-young, and I loved the extra scenes we got of our affable attorney. I always thought Kim Dae-myung excelled at humanizing his characters, and he often gives complex portrayals to even simple roles. It’s the way his eyes will look momentarily wistful, and in the case of Soon-young, I read it as the inevitable effect of outgrowing your hometown and longing for a past that no longer exists. He’s put in a difficult situation, and though he helps his friends as much as he can, he is also on the side responsible for laying them off at the whims of their superiors. It makes sense, then, that their thanks must feel bittersweet to the attorney who couldn’t bear the burden of being a prosecutor because his instincts are to protect rather than destroy. He really is softhearted, and I hope for his sake as well as everyone in the M&A team that their ending isn’t met with another painful goodbye.

 
RELATED POSTS

• Premiere Watch: The Art of Negotiation
• Lee Je-hoon gives tips on The Art of Negotiation
• Winning silver in The Art of Negotiation with Lee Je-hoon
• Lee Je-hoon shines in silver for JTBC’s The Art of Negotiation
• News bites: February 27, 2025
• News bites: February 26, 2025
• News bites: February 19, 2025
• News bites: February 18, 2025
• JTBC presents its 2025 drama lineup
• Lee Je-hoon
• Kim Dae-myung
• Sung Dong-il
• Jang Hyun-sung