This article was published on the ChosunBiz MoneyMove (MM) site at 5:06 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2025.
A corporate raider, a person surnamed Ahn, faces embezzlement and breach of trust charges, and a delisting process is under way at Cellfie Global, where the battle for control of the company continues. A shareholder coalition made up of Cellfie Global shareholders appeared to have ended the dispute after it succeeded in ousting the previous management and securing control, but the discovery that related documents were fabricated during the process suggests the dispute may drag on.
According to sources in the capital markets industry on the 18th, the voting rights register prepared at the Cellfie Global extraordinary general meeting held on Sept. 5 was found to have been written differently before and after notarization. However, because notarization for director registration was done afterward, the current management says there is no procedural problem.
At the Cellfie Global extraordinary general meeting in September, the shareholder coalition approved an agenda to appoint a total of six executives, including shareholder coalition leader Yoon Jeong-yeop, three inside directors, two outside directors and one auditor. The previous management was all dismissed, successfully severing ties with Ahn. The shareholder coalition completed the registration by the end of September and secured management rights.
But defects were found in the notarized documents submitted at the time of registration. The notarized documents submitted to the registry office listed Cellfie Global's total outstanding voting shares as 27,923,181. That figure is the result of subtracting 555,589 treasury shares and 17,433,946 shares with restricted voting rights from the total issued shares of 45,912,716. At the time, the shares that the shareholder coalition secured in favor of the agenda totaled 9,623,281, which appeared to meet the number of shares required for the resolution.
However, according to the minutes prepared at the shareholders meeting, Cellfie Global's total outstanding voting shares were only 35,575,300. That means there is a difference of about 8 million voting shares between documents related to the same shareholders meeting. This is why there are suspicions that the shareholder coalition deliberately understated the total outstanding voting shares to replace the management.
The current management says there is no procedural problem regarding these suspicions. The current management explained, said the previous management repeatedly sent content-certified mail to the notarization firm to prevent in-person notarization, so it was replaced by written notarization and the necessary seals could not be secured in advance, and therefore the number of shares for which voting rights were recognized reflected the total number of shares that the court had earlier judged as sham contributions and refused to recognize voting rights for, in order to match the ratio of passing the agenda with delegated shares that had the seal.
They also emphasized that under the Commercial Act, the appointment of executives is decided at a shareholders meeting and registration is a formal procedure for that. They said the shareholders meeting was held in the presence of an auditor appointed by the court, and the register had to be rewritten unavoidably due to procedural issues.
The current management said the court recognizes that executives were lawfully appointed at the actual shareholders meeting and said it believes the previous management manufactured the situation with the intent of prolonging the dispute by alleging document forgery.
The previous and current management of Cellfie Global continue to dispute control of the company. The previous management filed a lawsuit arguing that the shareholders meeting that appointed the current management was invalid and asking the court to prevent the holding of the currently ongoing shareholders meeting.
The current management gathered voting rights from shareholders to secure control to normalize Cellfie Global, but with document falsification confirmed, the dispute is likely to be prolonged. Cellfie Global has been ordered delisted, but a petition for a provisional injunction to suspend the delisting is pending in court. If the management dispute continues, the already slim chance of reversing the delisting decision is likely to become much smaller.
After Ahn and his associates seized control of Cellfie Global in 2022 and siphoned off company funds, the company's financial condition deteriorated sharply. In March last year, after two consecutive years of audit opinions of "disclaimer," the company became subject to a delisting substantive review, and as the management's embezzlement and breach of trust were confirmed, an additional reason for delisting was added.
The Korea Exchange (KRX) decided to delist Cellfie Global in April, saying profitability improvement was uncertain and opaque management fund execution was confirmed. However, the management filed a petition with the court for a provisional injunction to suspend the delisting, arguing it was not given sufficient time to restore the company, and trading remains suspended.