Competitor's Customer 'Illegally Taken'... Court Orders 2.3 Billion KRW Compensation

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] A funeral service company that was prosecuted for illegally poaching customers from a competing company has been ordered to pay over 2 billion won in damages.

According to the legal community on the 16th, the Seoul High Court 12-1 Division (Presiding Judges Yoon Jong-gu, Kwon Soon-hyung, Lee Seung-han) ruled in a damages claim lawsuit filed by Boram Sangjo Development, which operates Boram Sangjo, and two affiliated companies against the funeral service company "Bumosa-rang," ordering "Bumosa-rang to pay approximately 2.339 billion won in damages." This amount is 500 million won more than the 1.82 billion won awarded in the first trial.

It was investigated that Bumosa-rang had signed thousands of contracts through unfair customer inducement practices from March 2009 to December 2013. In particular, Bumosa-rang reportedly attracted new customers on the condition of recognizing part of the payments made by customers already enrolled in Boram Sangjo and even explained to some customers that "there was an embezzlement incident involving Boram Sangjo executives."

Accordingly, the Fair Trade Commission judged in November 2014 that Bumosa-rang's actions violated the Fair Trade Act and reported the corporation and its representative, Mr. Ki, to the prosecution.

Mr. Kim received a six-month prison sentence with a two-year probation in the first trial, and Bumosa-rang was fined 10 million won, with the verdict finalized. Subsequently, Boram Sangjo, which filed a civil lawsuit, obtained a judgment in the first trial that the number of customers actually transferred due to Bumosa-rang's illegal acts was 7,350, and the resulting damages amounted to 1.82 billion won.

Both parties appealed, and the amount of damages Bumosa-rang must pay increased compared to the first trial. The appellate court maintained the number of transferred customers recognized as causally related to Bumosa-rang's actions as in the first trial but judged that the damages were somewhat miscalculated due to an expert's error in the first trial, thus increasing the amount of damages.

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