A court ruled that it was justified to dismiss an executive at the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI), a Government-funded research institute, who was caught mining virtual asset using a graphics processing unit (GPU) that was an institute asset.
According to legal sources on the 31st, the Administrative Division 3 of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Ho Seong-ho) ruled against the plaintiff on Apr. 3 in a suit filed by Researcher A, who worked as Deputy Minister at the institute, seeking to overturn a Central Labor Relations Commission Chairperson's reexamination ruling that rejected a remedy for unfair dismissal.
According to an audit by the Audit Committee of the National Research Council of Science & Technology (NST), A built a server with 12 institute GPUs in a storage room of the VR room at the institute's promotion center in 2022 and installed virtual asset mining software. Using this setup, A mined about 71 million units of the virtual asset Nexa (NEXA) from Feb. to Sept. 2023. The audit found that the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI) suffered electricity bill damages worth 7.86 million won.
A also, with the help of another employee B, installed an unauthorized virtual private network (VPN) program and improperly recorded clock-ins and clock-outs 117 times. After moving to a university faculty position in Aug. 2023, BT continued for about nine months to access the PC via a bypass connection program and leaked the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI)'s research data.
The NST audit committee issued an institutional warning to the Korea Food Research Institute (KFRI) and demanded A's dismissal and recovery of damages. When the institute resolved to dismiss A, A claimed unfair dismissal and applied for relief to a regional labor relations commission. After the application was dismissed by the regional commission and then by the Central Labor Relations Commission, A filed an administrative suit seeking to overturn the Central Commission's reexamination ruling.
The court said, "Even considering only the plaintiff's acts of wrongdoing involving cryptocurrency mining and recording attendance using an unauthorized VPN program, in light of the duration and frequency, under the disciplinary guidelines this constitutes 'dismissal'."
A was brought to trial on charges including theft related to virtual asset mining and violating the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection for unauthorized attendance recording using an unauthorized VPN program. The court found all charges guilty and sentenced A to one year in prison, which was finalized as is.