Recent Developments

The collapse accident at the Sampyo Industry quarry occurred just two days after the enforcement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act (enforced on January 27, 2022) and drew significant attention as the “first case” under the Act. The case has been handled by Lee & Ko, which was involved from immediately after the accident and conducted both the investigation stage and the first-instance trial. The accident occurred on January 29, 2022, when three workers were carrying out aggregate extraction work using two drilling machines and one excavator, and the soil collapsed, burying the workers and resulting in their deaths.

In connection with this accident, the prosecution indicted the Chairman of the Sampyo Group for violation of the Serious Accident Punishment Act, the Chief Executive Officer for violation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act and occupational negligence resulting in death, and the CSO for occupational negligence resulting in death, among other charges.

In response, Lee & Ko demonstrated that the Group Chairman, who is not the CEO, does not qualify as a “responsible management personnel” under the Serious Accident Punishment Act, and that the CEO, the CSO, and others did not commit any violations, such as directing that work involving safety hazards be performed, or leaving work to proceed while knowing that it was being carried out without safety measures in place. As a result, the Group Chairman, the CEO, and the CSO were all acquitted.

This case has attracted media attention regarding whether, following the enforcement of the Serious Accident Punishment Act, a group chairman can be held criminally liable as a responsible manager for an industrial accident at an individual affiliate company. The court made clear that a person does not bear criminal liability under the Serious Accident Punishment Act merely because they sit at the top of a company’s or group’s governance structure, and that such responsibility is, in principle, borne by the corporation’s CEO. This constitutes an important judicial determination that helps dispel concerns that, in the case of group companies, the Serious Accident Punishment Act could expose the group chairman to criminal punishment.
 

Lee & Ko’s Antitrust & Competition Practice Group successfully represented a prominent Korean insurance company in criminal proceedings concerning alleged bid rigging in connection with insurance contract bids issued by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH). Following the acquittal by the trial court, Lee & Ko successfully defended the acquittal on appeal.

Despite the existence of leniency applications submitted by certain participants, Lee & Ko carefully analyzed the credibility and reliability of the statements and evidence. The appellate court concluded that there was insufficient evidence to establish the existence of collusion. This case is particularly noteworthy as the acquittal was upheld not because of a lack of intent, but because the Prosecutor’s Office failed to sufficiently prove there was a collusive agreement.

This outcome demonstrates Lee & Ko’s command of complex evidentiary issues, rigorous factual analysis, and comprehensive defense strategy in the trial and appellate court proceedings. Lee & Ko systematically challenged the evidence, including leniency statements, by scrutinizing their admissibility and credibility and persuasively highlighting the limitations. The acquittal reflects the Antitrust & Competition Practice Group's depth of expertise in complex cartel defense, from evidence analysis to appellate advocacy.

Lee & Ko has advised the Korean consortium (as borrower) comprised of Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd., POSCO Eco & Challenge Co. Ltd. and Hyundai Engineering Co., Ltd., in connection with the consortium’s Syndicated Discounted Repurchase Facility financing for the construction of the Panama Metro Line 3. 

The financing was structured as a securitization of government payment certificates (Certificados de No Objeción, or CDNOs) via three separate facilities provided by KEXIM, IDB Invest (the private sector arm of the Inter-American Development Bank), and a syndicate of seven international banks covered by K-Sure.

The funding will be used by the consortium to extend the Panama Metro Line 3 under the Panama Canal and further demonstrates the trust that international financiers place in the technical expertise of Korean contractors exporting their skills and know-how worldwide. 

This case originated from the government's announcement on October 15, 2025, of real estate measures expanding the scope of designated regulation zones to all of Seoul and 12 regions in Gyeonggi Province. Designation as a regulation zone triggers strict regulations, including strengthened actual residence requirements and lowered Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratios for housing mortgages. The plaintiffs argued that these real estate measures severely infringed upon their property rights and, in particular, that the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport intentionally misused housing price statistics serving as the basis for designating regulation zones.

In response, Lee & Ko's Administrative Litigation (Appeal) team argued that the government possesses broad discretion in formulating real estate policies. Furthermore, the team contended that since housing price statistics for September were not available at the time of designating the regulation zones, the government had no choice but to utilize existing data, and the fact that September housing price statistics were announced just before the additional designation of regulation zones did not affect the legality of the measures.

Considering the importance and urgency of the matter, the court proceeded with the trial swiftly. As a result, only two months after the lawsuit was filed, in January 2026, the court accepted all of Lee & Ko's arguments and dismissed the plaintiffs' claims. This case is evaluated as one where Lee & Ko's Administrative Litigation (Appeal) team demonstrated its ability to respond swiftly and accurately to government regulatory policies.
 

Lee & Ko’s IP & Technology Practice Group represented Naver and Naver Financial (the “Plaintiffs”), operators of Naver Pay Real Estate (formerly Naver Real Estate), Korea’s largest real estate information service, in an action seeking an injunction against Darwin Property (the “Defendant”), operator of the real estate listing service Darwin Brokerage, for infringement of database producers’ rights. Lee & Ko secured a favorable judgment at first instance and again on appeal, obtaining a final and conclusive judgment.

In this case, the court rendered a judgment that expressly confirmed that, even for real estate listing information posted on publicly accessible websites, infringement of a database producer’s rights may be established where a competitor collects and uses, without authorization and on a large scale, a platform database that was compiled, verified, classified, and updated through the investment of substantial cost and effort. In particular, the appellate court not only enjoined the Defendant from reproducing, distributing, transmitting, and assigning the data, but also ordered the deletion of the reproduced data, and recognized an increased amount of damages compared to the first instance, thereby making clear the importance and necessity of protecting platform data.

The Defendant argued that it had used only a portion of the Plaintiffs’ database, and that even if there had been reproduction, it amounted to no more than temporary reproduction and therefore did not constitute infringement. In response, Lee & Ko pointed out that the Defendant had, over a long period, repeatedly and systematically reproduced and transmitted a substantial part of the Plaintiffs’ database and had used it in operating its own service to obtain economic benefit, and, by analyzing technical materials such as source code, API request records, and crawling logs, specifically proved the circumstances of the Defendant’s crawling and data use on that basis.

In particular, at the technical hearings held in both the first instance and the appellate proceedings, Lee & Ko used images and videos in its oral arguments to visually explain the crawling structure, the API request method, and the flow of data collection, storage, and posting, arguing the case in a manner that enabled the court to intuitively understand the process by which the Plaintiffs’ data was reflected on the Defendant’s site. This evidentiary strategy, combining legal theory with technology, played a decisive role in leading the court to find that the Defendant’s conduct constituted infringement of database rights rather than mere temporary access.

This judgment is a significant crawling-case ruling that follows in the line of the JobKorea–Saramin (online recruitment and job-search platforms) and Yanolja–Yeogi Eottae (accommodation and travel-booking platforms) cases. It is regarded as a landmark decision that clearly delineates the legal limits on the unauthorized collection and commercial use of publicly available data in platform-data and AI/data-utilization businesses.

Lee & Ko secured a Supreme Court ruling reversing and remanding the lower court’s decision, which had treated the services at issue as exempt from value-added tax, by systematically advancing the legal argument that value-added tax refund agency services provided by a refund counter operator to foreign tourists do not constitute exempt “services similar to a money-lending business.”

The issue in this case was whether services under which a refund counter operator, acting on behalf of a tax-exempted seller, refunds value-added tax to foreign tourists and is reimbursed by the tax-exempted seller in the following month constitute “services similar to a money-lending business” under the Value-Added Tax Act and are therefore exempt from value-added tax.

The lower court held that the services constituted “services similar to a money-lending business,” reasoning, among other things, that the fees received by the refund counter operator could be regarded as interest on the amounts advanced, and accordingly upheld the tax assessment.

Before the Supreme Court, Lee & Ko presented detailed and rigorous arguments that: (i) the provisions of the Value-Added Tax Act providing exemptions for money-lending businesses and other specified services must be strictly construed to cover only money-lending businesses in their ordinary sense, incorporating the essential elements of money lending; (ii) a “money-lending business” necessarily involves the extension of credit through the provision of money on the premise that a specified amount will be repaid after a certain period, whereas a refund counter operator merely advances the necessary expenses incurred in carrying out entrusted matters in its capacity as a mandatary under a merchant agreement with a tax-exempted seller and is subsequently reimbursed, which does not constitute the lending of money; and (iii) the intent of the parties to the transactions was likewise inconsistent with a loan of money. The Supreme Court accepted Lee & Ko’s arguments, held that the lower court had erred by misapprehending the governing legal principles in a manner that affected the outcome of the judgment, and reversed and remanded the case.

This ruling is significant because it clarifies that the substance of a refund counter operator’s business is not money lending, but rather the handling of administrative matters on behalf of another party. The ruling is expected to serve as an important precedent not only for refund counter operators, but also for the value-added tax treatment of various other agency service providers that receive fees under similar arrangements.

Lee & Ko successfully represented a prominent Korean entertainment company in an international arbitration administered by the Shanghai International Arbitration Center (“SHIAC”) against a Chinese software company, securing a full award in favor of the client. The dispute arose from a licensing agreement under which the Korean entertainment company granted the Chinese firm the right to develop games utilizing the intellectual property of its affiliated artists. The case involved complex factual and legal contentions, centered primarily on the attribution of liability for significant development delays and the fulfillment of contractual conditions for termination.

As the governing law of the contract was Chinese law, the case demanded a meticulous and nuanced analysis of the local legal framework and contract law principles. Furthermore, because both the seat of arbitration and the arbitral institution were located in China, the proceedings required extensive experience and strategic expertise in navigating the specific procedural nuances of Chinese international arbitration.

Leveraging its deep track record of handling high-stakes disputes in China, Lee & Ko’s International Arbitration Team acted as sole counsel throughout the proceedings. The team successfully led all written submissions and hearing proceedings against local Chinese counsel, ultimately securing a "complete victory" for the client. This outcome underscores Lee & Ko’s dominant capability in China-related disputes and its proven ability to deliver favorable results in challenging foreign jurisdictions.

Lee & Ko represented the seller in Blackstone’s acquisition of Juno Group. The transaction comprised the acquisition of equity interests in Juno Beauty Co., Ltd., Juno Co., Ltd. and Soft Stone Co., Ltd., as well as the acquisition of all businesses of Juno Depot Co., Ltd. and Juno Academy Co., Ltd. other than their respective real estate-related businesses.

The transaction was notable not only as the first sale of a Korean hair salon operator, but also for its complex structure, which combined share acquisitions and business transfers and presented numerous legal and transactional issues. Lee & Ko’s effective advice helped the parties complete the transaction efficiently within a short timeframe.
 

Lee & Ko represented SK Multi Utility Co., Ltd. (a power generation subsidiary of SK Chemicals), together with its Chief Executive Officer and Plant Manager, in a criminal prosecution alleging violations of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (“SAPA”) and the Occupational Safety and Health Act (“OSHA”) arising from a fatal accident at a coal unloading facility involving an employee of a contractor. Following a full acquittal at first instance, Lee & Ko secured dismissal of the prosecution’s appeal, and the appellate court affirmed the acquittal in full.

On December 20, 2022, at a coal unloading facility of Company A, a dump truck loaded with coal overturned during the unloading process when the driver, employed by a transportation company, raised the truck bed without opening the rear gate. A contractor employee who was present at the site was crushed by the coal and the vehicle and died.

The appellate court held that a causal link could not be established between the fatal accident and the alleged breaches, including an alleged failure to protect workers from falling-object hazards and an alleged failure to establish an adequate safety and health management system under SAPA. The court further reasoned that, where the accident was clearly attributable to the driver’s operational error, imposing criminal liability on management solely by reason of the occurrence of the harmful result would be unwarranted, underscoring that SAPA does not impose strict result-based liability.

In circumstances where there were no settled judicial principles on causation under SAPA, Lee & Ko conducted a detailed analysis of the accident mechanism and surrounding facts, and presented a reasoned case that criminal liability requires proof of causation between any breach of statutory safety and health obligations and the fatal outcome.

This judgment is expected to serve as an important reference point in assessing causation in ongoing SAPA prosecutions and in future cases arising from fatal industrial accidents.