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When the hotel operator failed to repay the money, an employee of a loan company was sentenced to probation in the first trial for applying strong adhesive to the door lock of the room.
According to the legal community today (1st), Judge Shim Hyun-geun, the 11th independent criminal of the Seoul Central District Court, sentenced an employee of a loan company A, charged with obstruction of business, to one year in prison and two years of probation.
Lending company A had 416 million won in bonds to company B, which operated a hotel on consignment in Myeong-dong.
Based on this, in April 2018, the lending company established a collateral right for a collective property on the door locks of 331 hotel rooms.
It's like using the room door lock as a kind of collateral.
At that time, Company B was in such a difficult operating situation that it was unable to pay the room owners profits.
The consignment management rights for most of the rooms have also been transferred to Company C.
In October of the following year, the loan company passed the door lock to a forced auction on the grounds of company B's default and won the bid.
The lender who had the room door lock in his hand offered Company C the purchase of the door lock.
It was meant to sell the door locks back and collect the receivables.
However, Company C rejected the offer, denying the effect of the auction in which the lender won the door lock.
The logic was that the door locks belong to the room owners, not the consignment operators, so they could not be used as collateral in the first place.
Accordingly, over two days in November 2019, an employee of a loan company put a post-it coated with strong instant adhesive into the card key hole of 200 hotel rooms, making it impossible to insert the card key.
The loan company claimed that the door lock had been legally acquired, so the act of breaking the door lock was not an obstruction of business, but a free exercise of the right to the property.
However, the court did not accept the claim of the lending company, saying, "Payment of the price for using the door lock or delivery of the door lock must be done through civil litigation or compulsory enforcement procedures."
The court said, "The accused committed the crime by self-relief just because the door lock was auctioned."
However, the court explained that the defendant only committed the crime according to the company's instructions, and that he had no criminal record exceeding the fine was taken into consideration in the sentencing.
(Photo = Yonhap News)