Eugene Group filed an appeal against the court's decision to cancel the former Korea Communications Commission (now Korea Media and Communications Commission)'s approval of a change in YTN's largest shareholder. In Feb. last year, Eugene Group acquired YTN for about 320 billion won through its subsidiary Eugene ENT.
Eugene ENT said on the 4th that it filed an appeal with the Seoul High Court against the Seoul Administrative Court's ruling on the 28th that canceled approval of the change in YTN's largest capital contributor. Earlier, in the first-instance ruling, the court pointed to the fact that the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) operated with a two-person system consisting of the Chairperson and two standing Commissioners at the time of approving Eugene Group's qualification as YTN's largest shareholder as a "defect in the voting procedure," and decided to cancel its effect.
Eugene ENT said that day, "Cases disputing the procedural defect of the KCC's two-person system currently number more than 10 in the merits at the first and second instances, and the judgments vary by case," adding, "Among them, there is precedent that did not find the KCC's two-person voting system unlawful." Eugene ENT in particular cited the Seoul High Court's second-instance ruling on the 28th of last month in the case where MBC filed a suit against the KCC to cancel the disciplinary action related to the report "PD Notebook exclusion from the presidential jet."
At the time, the panel ruled that "the KCC's sanction was unjust," but judged that the KCC's two-person system itself "is not unlawful," along with the interpretation that "the number of sitting Commissioners, under the statutory text, means Commissioners who are on the rolls of the defendant (the KCC) at the time of the vote." On the same day, higher and lower courts that held hearings reached differing interpretations on the legality of the KCC's two-person system.
Eugene ENT said, "The MBC PD Notebook ruling on the report about exclusion from the presidential jet is meaningful in that it is the first determination to come out in a higher-court merits case specifically regarding the KCC's two-person system," adding, "In light of this legal landscape and the trend in precedent, we proceeded with the appeal process."