Korea Zinc Requests Police Investigation into 'Organized Defamatory Comments'... MBK Claims "Intentional Suspicion Raising"

Korea Zinc requested the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency to investigate a group that continuously posted organized defamatory comments and spread false information about the company and its top executives, damaging their reputation. MBK Partners rebutted, stating that the allegations were intentional suspicions raised in response to their prior investigation requests and the ensuing investigations into malicious public opinion manipulation.

On the 13th, Korea Zinc stated, "Unknown individuals posted messages with the intent to defame our company and top executives in large portal stock discussion rooms and article comment sections during the public tender offer period (September 13 to October 23 last year), spreading false information and damaging our reputation." They delivered a request for investigation to the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency for defamation under the Information and Communications Network Act.

After analyzing the malicious posts in the stock discussion rooms, Korea Zinc revealed that several peculiarities were identified. A small number of authors accounted for a significant portion of all posts, with the top two authors responsible for more than 25% of the total posts. Korea Zinc also pointed out that unlike typical online community activity, which is usually active during evening hours, these comments were predominantly posted during working hours in the daytime.

Furthermore, the top three users accounted for about 40% of all negative keyword usage, indicating concentration on specific individuals. Posting patterns such as multiple authors using the same IP address were also discovered. Korea Zinc explained, "This strongly suggests that someone intentionally engaged in organized activities."

Similar patterns appeared in the article comment sections. The top five users who posted many malicious comments each wrote between 30 and 50 comments, concentrating their activity during late night and early morning hours, which contrasts with typical community behavior, according to Korea Zinc.

A Korea Zinc official said, "MBK and Youngpoong distorted facts multiple times during their hostile merger and acquisition (M&A) attempts against Korea Zinc, becoming subjects of complaints for market manipulation and fraudulent unfair trading, using any means necessary to succeed in their hostile M&A." The official added, "We expect the investigation to clearly reveal whether MBK and Youngpoong are connected to these comment groups."

In response, MBK Partners stated that as investigations into the 'reverse viral' (malicious public opinion manipulation) suspicions began following their own investigation request, Korea Zinc intentionally raised these suspicions. MBK Partners said, "Since September last year, we detected viral signs of organized negative comments and discussion posts about MBK and Youngpoong on media reports and stock message boards and requested an investigation by relevant authorities." They added, "After receiving the investigation request, authorities immediately began investigating by identifying IP addresses of numerous IDs with common patterns, which are highly likely to be involved in organized defamation." MBK Partners also claimed that Korea Zinc's mention of a 'specific faction' was "a deliberate suspicion and reaction triggered by the intensification of the investigation following our request."

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