'Gapjil Sales Incident' Kooksoondang CEO Receives Suspended Prison Sentence in Retrial

Jung-ho Bae, CEO of Kooksoondang

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Bae Jung-ho, CEO of Kooksoondang, who was prosecuted in the so-called 'Gapjil sales incident,' was sentenced to a suspended prison term in the retrial after remand.

The 5-2 Criminal Appeals Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Seokdong Yoo) sentenced CEO Bae to 6 months in prison with a 1-year suspension on the 19th during the retrial after remand of the case. Two executives who were indicted together were each sentenced to 4 months in prison with a 1-year suspension. The court stated, "The defendants argue for a fine, but considering sentencing examples in similar cases, we have no choice but to impose a prison sentence."

CEO Bae and others were prosecuted for forcibly assigning sales targets to wholesalers and unilaterally terminating contracts and expelling those who had low sales or did not comply with the policy. They were also accused of passing sales information of wholesalers opposing the restructuring plan to their own directly managed stores, which are competitors.

The first trial court found the obstruction of business charge to be valid, but the second trial court acquitted some charges, stating that the 'coercive power' sufficient to establish the crime was not recognized. The Supreme Court ruled that there was a problem with the first and second trial courts' judgments that found 'trade secret leakage' guilty and sent the case back. Accordingly, in the retrial after remand, only the parts where supply quantities were reduced and computer access was blocked to wholesalers targeted for expulsion, causing them to close, were recognized as guilty.

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