'Hitag Jinro Park Tae-young, Convicted of "Ilgam Molaeju" Again in Second Trial with Suspended Prison Sentence'

Park Tae-young, CEO of HiteJinro, was sentenced to a suspended prison term again in the second trial for unfairly funneling work to a specific affiliate during the management succession process. Park is the eldest son of Park Moon-duk, chairman of HiteJinro.

Seoul Central District Court, Seocho-gu, Seoul.

On the 23rd, the 4-3 Criminal Appeals Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Lee Hun-jae, Yang Ji-jung, Lee Tae-woo) sentenced Park, who was indicted for violating the Fair Trade Act, to 1 year and 3 months in prison with a 2-year suspension. He was also ordered to perform 80 hours of community service. The sentence was slightly reduced from the first trial’s 1 year and 6 months in prison with a 2-year suspension.

The court stated, "He attempted to establish a foundation for management succession by changing the governance structure to control HiteJinro through Seoyoung ENT," and added, "Despite being aware of the possibility of violating the Fair Trade Act, he continuously sought new illegal transaction structures to evade legal regulations." However, the court took into account that HiteJinro paid fines afterward, introduced a fair trade compliance program, confessed to the crime, and showed deep remorse.

The prosecution viewed that from 2008 to 2017, tens of billions of won worth of unfair 'work funneling' occurred through a so-called 'pass-through fee' method, inserting Seoyoung ENT, an affiliate in which Park held the largest stake, into the beer can manufacturing and distribution process. The first trial recognized all charges related to the pass-through fee support and judged that these crimes were not unrelated to Park’s management succession process.

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