One day, the Supreme Court decided that a person who wrote privately without returning the Bitcoin transferred to the virtual wallet should not be charged with breach of trust.
This is the first Supreme Court ruling that a person who fails to return an erroneously transferred virtual asset to the original owner cannot be punished for breach of trust.
The 3rd part of the Supreme Court (Chief Justice Kim Jae-hyung) overturned the original sentence of 1 year and 6 months in prison for the purpose of acquittal in the appeal of Mr. The case was returned to the Suwon High Court.
In June 2018, for unknown circumstances, 199.999 bitcoins (worth 1.48 billion won) in Greek B's virtual wallet were transferred to him, and the next day he moved 199.94 bitcoins to two other accounts. charged with
It was investigated that he used the transferred bitcoins for personal use and returned 158.22 bitcoins to the victim just before he was put on trial the following year.
The prosecution also preliminarily applied the charge of breach of trust to Mr. A's actions in case the charge of embezzlement is not found guilty in court.
The precondition for the crime of embezzlement is 'wealth'.
The 1st and 2nd trial courts ruled that the crime of breach of trust was found guilty after judging that Bitcoin was not an object of embezzlement on the grounds that it had no physical substance and was merely digital electronic information managed in an office manner.
If you transfer and store bitcoins owned by someone else for no apparent reason, it is an unfair advantage and you must return it. .
In the first and second trial, according to this, Mr. A was the subject of the offense of breach of trust, 'a person who handles other people's affairs'.
However, the Supreme Court decided otherwise.
The Supreme Court, which heard the case again through Mr. A's appeal, said, "If the virtual asset is transferred to another person's electronic wallet regardless of the legal cause due to an error of the virtual asset right holder or an error in the virtual asset operation system, the duty to return the unreasonable profits shall be borne. It could be," he said, "but this is nothing more than a civil debt between the parties."
He continued, "Even if the accused directly bears the obligation to return undue profits to the victim, it cannot be concluded that the person who has directly transferred the virtual assets is the subject of the breach of trust, 'person who handles the affairs of others'." It is not easy to recognize a trusting relationship between the victim and the defendant when the
Virtual assets such as bitcoin are not treated the same as fiat currency, and transactions involve risks.
The Supreme Court said, "There is no written provision to punish a person who uses or disposes of a virtual asset, which is a property benefit, for unknown reasons." It goes against the principle of the criminal justice system to punish people for breach of trust based on the principle of good faith,” he added.