A 30-Year-Old Who Deleted 4,000 Files Upon Resignation and Changed All Passwords and Website Access

Charged with Obstruction of Business

A man in his 30s was fined for deleting over 4,000 work-related files and resetting the company website, causing disruption to business operations upon his resignation.

On the 10th, the Seoul Eastern District Court Criminal Division 8 (Judge Kim Seon-sook) announced that it had sentenced A (35), an employee of an online shopping mall, to a fine of 5 million won on charges of obstruction of business.

A person in their 30s who deleted company work files upon resignation was sentenced to a fine in the first trial.

A is accused of deleting 4,216 work files stored in a Google account when he resigned in April 2021, citing unresolved profit-sharing negotiations with the company. Additionally, A changed the password of the website administrator account, reset the website templates, and deleted the shopping mall design that had been developed up to that point. At the time, A was the administrator of the company’s Google account and website account, and it was found that the accounts were shared with executives and employees, with work-related files stored in the Google account.

A’s side claimed that the files were merely moved to the trash bin due to the lack of agreement on profit-sharing with the company, and that the moved files could be restored at any time, arguing there was no intent to obstruct business. However, the court did not accept this argument.

The court explained the sentencing by stating, "Even if the corporate files were only moved to the Google account trash bin, they cannot be restored after 30 days," and "In fact, the company was only able to recover some of the materials from A, and since A reset the company website, the work done up to that point could not be restored." A appealed the first trial verdict.

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