Former Law Firm Employees Sentenced to Prison in Appeal for Using Undisclosed Information in Stock Trading

Three Years and Six Months, and Three Years in Prison

Fines of 6 Billion Won and 1.58 Billion Won

Former employees of a law firm, who were indicted for profiting unfairly by using undisclosed information, were sentenced to prison terms again in the appellate trial.

Yonhap News Agency

According to the legal community on July 31, the Seoul High Court Criminal Division 3 (Presiding Judge Lee Seunghan) on July 16 sentenced a former law firm employee, identified as Mr. Ga, to three years in prison and a fine of 2.96 billion won for violating the Capital Markets Act and other charges. In the first trial, he had been sentenced to three years and six months in prison and a fine of 6 billion won.

Another former employee of the same law firm, identified as Mr. Nam, was sentenced to three years in prison, the same as in the first trial. His fine was reduced from 1.6 billion won to 1.58 billion won.

Mr. Ga and Mr. Nam were each ordered to forfeit approximately 980 million won and 520 million won, respectively, and their bail was also revoked.

The court explained the reasons for reducing the sentences and fines, stating, "Some of the prosecution's claims about how Mr. Ga acquired the undisclosed information were not fully proven, and in Mr. Nam's case, the timing of acquiring the undisclosed information was assessed differently."

The court added, "The two individuals' crimes seriously undermined the fairness and trust of the capital market and even diminished the credibility of the law firm. They were fully aware of the illegality and still committed the crimes, which makes the nature of their offenses egregious."

Mr. Ko, a former private equity fund employee who stood trial alongside them, was sentenced to one year in prison with a two-year suspended sentence and a fine of 30 million won, the same as in the first trial. Two other former employees had their sentences reduced compared to the first trial, being sentenced to six months and eight months in prison with suspended sentences of one year each.

Mr. Ga and Mr. Nam, who had worked as IT staff at a major law firm, were accused of repeatedly accessing the email accounts of lawyers on the corporate advisory team from August 2022 to June 2024 to obtain undisclosed information regarding tender offers, paid-in capital increases, and stock sale and purchase agreements, which they then used for stock trading.

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