Court Orders LG Display Employee Who Embezzled Inventory to Pay 13 Billion Won Plus Interest

A former LG Display employee who embezzled LCD module products worth approximately 13 billion KRW has been ordered to compensate the company over 16 billion KRW.

The Civil Division 11 of the Seoul Southern District Court (Presiding Judge Kim Jeong-min) announced on the 5th that it delivered a partial ruling in favor of the plaintiff on April 28 in a damages claim lawsuit filed by LG Display against former employee Hwang Mo.

The court ordered Hwang to compensate LG Display 1,305,561,000 KRW plus delayed interest of 5% per annum for five years from September 2018 until the judgment date, and 12% per annum from after the judgment until full repayment.

Considering the delayed interest, the actual amount Hwang must pay LG Display reaches over 16 billion KRW.

Hwang, who was a responsible employee in LG Display’s sales team handling inventory and supply management, is accused of embezzling 151,484 LCD module products stored in a warehouse in China over six years from 2012 to 2018.

The embezzled products were valued at approximately 11,716,431 USD, which, based on the exchange rate at the time of 1,114.3 KRW per USD, amounts to about 13 billion KRW.

Hwang exploited the lack of post-delivery verification when transferring inventory or processing return requests during the shipment of produced LCD module products to affiliates, transporting products stored in the Chinese warehouse back to Korea and embezzling them.

To conceal the crime, he also managed the return payments as accounts receivable.

In the previous criminal appeal trial, Hwang was sentenced to seven years in prison for fraud under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Economic Crimes, and the Supreme Court dismissed his appeal in March 2020, finalizing the sentence.

Hwang also claimed that since he repaid LG Display by transferring a lease deposit refund claim worth approximately 55 million KRW and a golf membership worth about 20 million KRW, these amounts should be deducted from the compensation. However, the court rejected this claim.

The court stated, "Based solely on the evidence submitted by the defendant, it is insufficient to recognize that the transfer of these claims was made in lieu of repayment of the plaintiff’s damages claim against the defendant, or that the plaintiff has been repaid through the transferred claims, and there is no other evidence to acknowledge this."

Hwang filed an appeal on May 22, after the first trial verdict, but the lawsuit was dismissed on the 8th of last month for exceeding the two-week appeal period.

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