This article was published on Feb. 27, 2025, at 12:08 p.m. on the ChosunBiz RM Report site.
The Supreme Court overturned a portion of the lower court's finding of not guilty regarding Jeon In-jang, chairman of Samyang Foods, who has been charged with issuing false tax invoices worth hundreds of millions of won.
Chairman Jeon is the son of the late Jeon Jong-yun, the founder of Samyang Foods. He previously served three years in prison for charges including embezzlement prior to this case. While Chairman Jeon underwent investigation and trial, his wife, Kim Jeong-soo, vice chairwoman of Samyang Foods, and their children participated in company management. Thanks to the popularity of the spicy chicken noodles released in 2012, Samyang Foods recorded 1.73 trillion won in sales last year.
On the 27th, the Supreme Court's Third Division (Chief Justice Lee Heung-gu) stated during the sentencing date for Chairman Jeon's violation of the Act on Specific Crimes for Aggravated Punishment (issuing false tax invoices, etc.) and the Tax Punishment Act that it "overturned and remanded the appeal ruling that found some transactions not guilty."
Chairman Jeon was indicted in December 2019 for allegedly issuing false invoices and tax invoices worth 5.38 billion won through two ghost companies, despite having never received any products or services from 2010 to 2017.
These allegations came to light while Chairman Jeon was imprisoned on charges of embezzling over 4.9 billion won from company funds. He was indicted for allegedly manipulating documents to embezzle funds by making it appear that ghost companies supplied packaging boxes and food materials to Samyang Foods, even though there were separate affiliates supplying these from 2008 to 2017. His three-year prison sentence was confirmed in January 2019, and he was incarcerated. He is currently out on parole.
Chairman Jeon was convicted in the first trial regarding the issuance of false invoices and received a three-year prison sentence with five years of probation and a fine of 19.1 billion won. However, in the second trial, some charges were found not guilty, resulting in a sentence of one year and six months in prison with three years of probation and a fine of 650 million won. The second trial court stated, "If the business was actually being operated while only the name was formally used by a third party, it does not constitute the issuance of false invoices."
However, the Supreme Court overturned the second trial's ruling. The Supreme Court stated, "The affiliate did not merely borrow the names of ghost companies for business registration and intended to operate a real business, but rather acted with the intent of embezzlement and issuing and receiving false invoices."