Supreme Court Confirms Probation for Former LG Electronics HR Head Over Executive's Son's Unfair Admission

The guilt of a former LG Electronics HR head who unlawfully passed the son of an executive, a subject of recruitment solicitation management, despite his score not meeting the passing criteria has been confirmed.

According to the legal community on the 31st, the Supreme Court's 2nd Division (Presiding Justice Cheon Dae-yeop) recently finalized the original court ruling that sentenced Park, charged with obstruction of business, to six months in prison with a two-year probation.

Supreme Court, Seocho-dong, Seoul.

Park, who was the head of HR at LG Electronics headquarters, was prosecuted for obstructing fair recruitment duties by unlawfully passing the son of an executive and others during the new employee selection process from 2013 to 2015.

To efficiently manage the increasing issue of recruitment solicitations, Park established the "Recruitment Solicitation Management Plan" in March 2014, instructing the setting of conditions for accepting solicitations and procedures for handling them. He decided to apply this plan starting from the first half of 2014 new employee recruitment and sent such HR policies to affiliates.

The recruitment solicitations received at headquarters or six business divisions were all collected by the headquarters recruitment team, then the acceptance of solicitations was finally reviewed and decided together with the HR executives of each division. Those subject to recruitment solicitation management were referred to as "GD".

During the first half of 2014 new employee recruitment, A, the son of an executive who was a production group leader, failed the document screening because he did not meet one of the eligibility criteria on the recruitment announcement, which was "a cumulative GPA of 3.0/4.5 or higher at the final school." However, Park instructed the staff to "review so that he can pass the document screening since although he failed due to low graduate school grades, his undergraduate scores are not low," resulting in A passing the first screening.

A, who was unjustly included among those who passed the first document screening, also failed to meet the passing score in the second aptitude test but was included in the list of successful candidates, attended the interview, and was finally hired as a new employee on July 20, 2014.

Additionally, during the first half of 2015 new employee recruitment, B, a management subject who had requested HR solicitation, ranked 102nd out of 105 candidates in the second interview round and could not be included among the top 60 successful candidates. Nevertheless, Park instructed to "pass B so that additional verification can be conducted," and "since confirmation was received from higher-ups at headquarters, give B the opportunity to attend the final interview," resulting in B being included in the list of successful candidates for the second screening. Ultimately, B was hired as a new employee on July 19, 2015.

Park, who worked as an HR officer at headquarters from December 2013 to December 2016 and oversaw HR-related tasks including new employee recruitment, was prosecuted along with seven others, including the headquarters recruitment team leader and HR officers affiliated with headquarters, for obstructing the company's HR duties.

The first trial court sentenced Park to six months in prison with two years probation. The other accomplices were fined between 7 million and 10 million KRW.

In court, Park claimed innocence, arguing that "recruitment activities to secure talent with diverse abilities fall within the discretion of a private company and therefore cannot be criminal," but this was not accepted.

The first trial court stated, "The acts described in the indictment by the defendants exceeded the legitimate discretion of private companies in recruitment and are evaluated as obstruction of business by interfering with the interviewers' duties and the company's new employee recruitment tasks."

The court pointed out, "It is natural that LG Electronics, as a profit-seeking private company, has considerable discretion in recruitment. However, such discretion does not permit violations of laws or serious infringements on fairness according to social norms. The scope is determined comprehensively by considering the company's publicly stated values and vision, the corporate form (as a joint-stock company considering the interests of all shareholders), the content of recruitment announcements as external expressions of intent, the type of recruitment (open recruitment/special recruitment), and the legal standards and social consensus on transparency, fairness, and equity that should be essentially pursued in open competitive recruitment systems."

Regarding sentencing, the court stated, "Park, who oversaw HR duties at LG Electronics headquarters and wielded significant influence, bears great responsibility for the results caused by the inappropriate establishment of 'management plans' and 'management guidelines,' the collection and management of subjects (GD), and their use in the recruitment process."

The court added, "The defendant even issued instructions that distorted the results of the second and final interviews, contrary to the 'management guidelines' he himself decided and issued during the recruitment process. This crime destroyed the appropriateness and fairness of recruitment procedures, causing great disappointment and anger in society, and severely damaged LG Electronics' vision, values, and corporate image."

The second trial court held the same view.

The second trial court overturned the first trial ruling due to changes in the prosecutor's indictment but sentenced Park to the same punishment.

The Supreme Court also found no problem with the lower courts' judgments.

The court explained the reason for dismissing Park's appeal, stating, "There is no error in the original judgment that violates the rules of logic and experience, exceeds the limits of free evaluation of evidence, or misinterprets the law regarding 'deception' in obstruction of business by deception and joint criminal responsibility by conspiracy, which affected the judgment."

Park is currently known to be serving as an executive at an LG Group training institution.

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