Prosecutors filed an appeal brief over the first-trial acquittal of former Hyundai AutoEver CEO Seo Jeong-sik, who was charged with breach of trust and receiving bribes.
The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office said in a press notice on the 19th, "In line with the court's strict standard for determining the admissibility of digital materials related to separate charges obtained from a voluntarily submitted mobile phone, we carefully reviewed the facts by comparing them with similar cases," explaining the appeal.
Prosecutors said, "Some materials related to certain breach-of-trust bribery charges lack sufficient basis to conclude the defendant intended to voluntarily submit them at the time, so in accordance with strict rules of evidence, some breach-of-trust bribery and related counts were excluded from the scope of the appeal."
The Seoul Central District Court Criminal Division 21 (Presiding Judge Lee Hyun-bok, senior judge) on the 12th acquitted former CEO Seo of charges including receiving bribes in breach of trust and violating the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act. The court found that a substantial portion of the evidence submitted by prosecutors constituted illegally collected evidence.
Prosecutors had said they uncovered Seo's alleged breach-of-trust bribery while investigating allegations that KT Cloud, an affiliate of the KT Group, acquired the in-vehicle cloud company Spark & Associates (Spark, now OpenCloudLab) at an inflated price.
Prosecutors alleged that former CEO Seo received economic benefits worth about 860 million won in corporate card spending and cash from three people, including a cooperating-vendor CEO, in return for requests to maintain the transaction relationship and provide convenience in deliveries, and indicted him in May two years ago. The court, however, found that most of the evidence related to the breach-of-trust bribery charges was inadmissible, and that the remaining evidence was insufficient to prove the indictment.
The court said Seo consented only to the submission of electronic information from his mobile phone related to former KT CEO Yun Kyung-lim's alleged breach of duty and the suspicion of Spark's overpriced purchase, and it was hard to see that he intended to voluntarily submit information beyond that scope. It ruled the seizure unlawful as it was based on the voluntary submission of unrelated evidence.
The court also found not guilty on the charge that he received 80 million won from a person surnamed Han related to Spark. It said the amount could be viewed as a fee for helping with the sale of Spark, and it was difficult to see it as money received in return for guaranteeing a long-term contract between Hyundai AutoEver and Spark.