Supreme Court Confirms Prison Sentence for Former Aekyung Industrial CEO in 'Humidifier Disinfectant Data Concealment' Case

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] The former CEO of Aekyung Industrial, who was indicted for concealing harmful data related to humidifier disinfectants, has been sentenced to prison.

The Supreme Court's 3rd Division (Presiding Justice No Tae-ak) on the 29th upheld the original sentence of 2 years and 6 months imprisonment in the appeal trial of former Aekyung Industrial CEO Ko Gwang-hyun, who was charged with instructing evidence destruction.

Yang Mo, former executive director of Aekyung Industrial, who was also indicted for carrying out evidence destruction, received a confirmed sentence of 1 year imprisonment, and former team leader Lee Mo was sentenced to 1 year imprisonment with a 2-year probation, respectively.

Aekyung Industrial is the distributor of "Humidifier Mate," the product that caused the second highest number of victims after "Oxy Ssak Ssak Humidifier Duty" during the humidifier disinfectant incident.

They were brought to trial on charges of hiding and destroying data related to humidifier disinfectants from 2016, when the prosecution's investigation into the humidifier disinfectant case began in earnest, until before indictment.

In 2016, the prosecution formed a "Special Investigation Team for Humidifier Disinfectant Damage Cases" and prosecuted officials from Oxy, Lotte Mart, and Homeplus, who manufactured humidifier disinfectants using polyhexamethylene guanidine (PHMG) as a raw material. They were sentenced to up to 6 years in prison.

However, several manufacturers and sellers, including Aekyung Industrial, avoided responsibility at the time, citing that the harmfulness of the raw materials chloromethylisothiazolinone (CMIT) and methylisothiazolinone (MIT) had not been clearly proven.

Subsequently, as epidemiological research data on the harmfulness of CMIT and MIT accumulated in academia and the Ministry of Environment submitted related research data, the prosecution's reinvestigation began at the end of 2018.

After an 8-month investigation, the prosecution indicted 34 people including former SK Chemical CEO Hong Ji-ho and former Aekyung Industrial CEO Ahn Yong-chan. Many of them are currently undergoing first and second trial proceedings.

Yang Mo (56), a former National Assembly aide who was arrested and indicted on charges of receiving bribes from Aekyung Industrial under the name of lobbying funds, was sentenced last month to 2 years imprisonment and fined 60 million won.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.