President Yoon Seok-yeol's mother-in-law Choi Eun-soon has been confirmed to have partially lost a civil lawsuit over forgery of balance certificates.
The first division of the Supreme Court recently upheld the dismissal of the judgment of the lower court, which ruled in favor of some of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by businessman Im Mo against Choi for compensation for damages and check money.
Dismissal of trial is a system that confirms the original judgment without explaining a separate reason according to the Act on Special Cases of Appeal Procedure, if there is no special reason such as a serious violation of laws in the lower court.
As the judgment is finalized, Mr. Choi must pay Mr. Lim about 490 million won.
In 2014, Mr. Lim lent 1.65 billion won to Mr. Ahn, known as Mr. Choi's business partner, and received five overdraft checks in Mr. Choi's name as collateral.
Lim claimed that Ahn borrowed money and presented Choi's balance certificate.
Mr. Choi, who had lent the check to Mr. Ahn, sent a proof of contents to Mr. Ahn and demanded that the check be returned and reported the accident.
Lim presented the check to the bank, but when payment was refused, he filed a lawsuit against Choi.
During the trial, Lim argued that "Choi gave Ahn the right to change the date of issue of the check, and also used the money Ahn borrowed as security for the check."
The first trial upheld Choi's hand, saying that it could not be admitted that Choi gave Ahn the authority to change the check issuance date, given that Ahn was punished with a fine for altering the check without Choi's permission.
On the other hand, the second trial overturned the judgment, saying that Mr. Choi was responsible for neglecting it even though he could have expected that Mr. Ahn would use the check illegally, given that Mr. Choi filled out a false balance certificate for Mr. Ahn.
Earlier, the first trial admitted that Choi had given a false balance certificate to Mr. Ahn, but it was difficult to see that he expected it to be used to borrow money from Mr. Lim, but in the second trial, negligence was recognized.
Mr. Choi was indicted on charges of forging balance certificates as if he had deposited 34.9 billion won in a savings bank on four occasions in the process of purchasing land in Dochon-dong, Jungwon-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province from April to October 2013. He was sentenced to one year in prison in the first trial. was sentenced and the second trial is in progress.
Choi admits to forging the balance certificate, but denies the allegation, saying that he was deceived by Ahn's words that he would use it to acquire information from the Korea Asset Management Corporation (Kamco).