Supreme Court Confirms Boxing Champion Hong Suhwan's Agency Head Guilty of Embezzling 15 Million Won in Advertising Fees... Fined 5 Million Won

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

[Asia Economy Reporter Choi Seok-jin, Legal Affairs Specialist] The management company CEO who embezzled advertising fees from Hong Su-hwan (71), a former professional boxing world champion, has been sentenced to a fine.

The Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) announced on the 23rd that it upheld the original ruling sentencing A, the CEO of Hong's agency, to a fine of 5 million KRW in the final appeal trial on charges of fraud.

The court stated the reason for dismissing the appeal, saying, "There is no error in the lower court's judgment regarding the credibility of evidence, no misinterpretation of facts beyond the limits of free evaluation of evidence, and no misunderstanding of the legal principles concerning fraud as claimed in the grounds for appeal."

A, who was running an entertainment management business in Songpa-gu, Seoul, signed a contract with Hong in April 2015 to manage marketing, scheduling, and related activities for lectures, advertisements, and broadcasts.

In January 2018, A deceived Hong by saying, "We received an offer to be a model for a game product advertisement. Although the advertising fee has not been decided yet, it seems to be about 10 million KRW, so let's proceed with the advertisement shooting," even though the actual contract was for an advertising fee of 33 million KRW.

Believing A's words, Hong filmed the advertisement in February 2018 at a boxing gym in Ilsanseo-gu, Goyang City, and on March 12 of the same year, received about 8.7 million KRW from A as advertising fees.

When Hong asked A to show the contract, A sent a false contract stating that company B, which had signed a business agreement related to advertisements of entertainers belonging to A's company, would pay Hong 10 million KRW.

However, A had actually signed a contract with advertising agency C to receive 33 million KRW as advertising fees and agreed to pay 3 million KRW to intermediary agency D, so the advertising fee received by A's company was 30 million KRW. Since A was to receive a 10-20% commission from Hong, the advertising fee that should have been paid to Hong was between 24 million and 27 million KRW.

The court judged that the difference (about 15 million KRW) that Hong, deceived into believing the advertising fee was 10 million KRW, did not claim from A could be considered the amount of fraud damage.

In the trial, A argued that since the advertising work for the affiliated entertainer was collaborated with company B and the profits were to be shared, the advertising fee due to Hong was only 10 million KRW.

However, the first trial recognized the agreement between A's company and B to distribute the advertising fees of A's affiliated entertainers at a 4:6 ratio but found that B was not involved at all in the problematic game advertisement contract, and that A arbitrarily paid 17 million KRW to this company.

Ultimately, A was found guilty of fraud in the first trial and sentenced to a fine of 5 million KRW. A appealed, but the second trial also upheld the first trial's judgment.

In the appeal, A claimed that the fine of 5 million KRW was too heavy. However, the court rejected A's claim of excessive sentencing, citing unfavorable factors such as A's denial of the crime and lack of remorse, the considerable amount of damage, and the lack of forgiveness from the victim.

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