The court hearing the Korea Zinc management control dispute ordered Korea Zinc to submit the advisory contract and minutes it signed with the operator of the minority shareholder platform "Act."
According to legal sources on the 26th, the Seoul Central District Court recently ordered Korea Zinc to submit materials including the advisory contract signed with Conduit, the operator of Act, as well as emails, proposals, progress reports, minutes, and opinions. The goal is to verify the content and scope of the work Conduit performed. The court also ordered Korea Zinc to submit all records of funds paid to Conduit.
The order to submit documents was made in the course of the lawsuit seeking to nullify the resolutions of the 2025 Korea Zinc annual general shareholders meeting filed by Young Poong and MBK Partners. Young Poong and MBK Partners argue that Director Choi Yoon-beom's side mobilized SMH and SMC, Korea Zinc's Australian affiliates, to acquire more than 10% of Young Poong shares and, based on that, restricted the voting rights of Young Poong, the largest shareholder of Korea Zinc—an unlawful measure that exceeded the bounds of legitimate management control defense.
Young Poong and MBK maintain that Conduit is not merely an external advisor. They say internal Conduit materials disclosed last year included content related to restricting Young Poong's voting rights and Korea Zinc's management control defense strategy.
Regarding this, Young Poong and MBK said, "The crux of this decision is to objectively determine the extent to which Conduit was involved in forming the circular shareholding structure and the appearance of cross-shareholdings that led to the restriction of Young Poong's voting rights, and whether that process fell within the scope of legitimate management control defense measures."
In particular, a key issue is whether Korea Zinc's corporate funds were used for external advisory work related to Chairman Choi's defense of control. Young Poong and MBK Partners said, "The fundamental question is whether the advisory work carried out with corporate funds was involved in designing the measures to restrict the largest shareholder's voting rights and defend management control."