“Minor discrepancies are not perjury”... A man in his 50s who attended a trial for breach of trust and was accused of perjury was ‘not indicted’

A man who was accused of perjury by the company after testifying as a witness in a company's trial for breach of duty was acquitted. This is because the prosecution judged that although the testimony relying on memory had some differences from objective facts, the overall purpose could not be considered false.

According to the legal community on the 17th, the Changwon District Prosecutors' Office decided not to indict Mr. A, who was sent on charges of perjury last September. In August of last year, Mr. A was sued for giving false testimony while attending the trial of Mr. B, the former CEO of the company he worked for, on charges of breach of trust.

The issue in the trial at the time was whether Mr. B executed the funds without receiving approval from the chairman, the actual owner of the company. Mr. A, who worked as the head of the management department at the company, testified in court to the effect that "all funds, even if small amounts, were subject to the final approval of the chairman. Additional salaries paid to executives were also according to the chairman's instructions."

Accordingly, the company sued Mr. A for perjury, claiming that all of Mr. A's testimony was false. The company claimed that vouchers that had not been approved by the chairman were confirmed, and in particular, vouchers related to foreign currency execution were not approved by the chairman at all. The company also claimed that the payment of additional salaries to executives was done at the direction of Mr. B, and that Mr. A testified falsely even though he wrote a statement confirming the facts in this regard.

However, Mr. A denied the charge, saying, “The fact that some slips did not have the chairman’s approval was simply an omission during the bulk approval process and I did not intentionally lie.” Mr. A also claimed, "In the case of executing foreign currency, there was no approval process from the beginning, and everything was reported verbally to the chairman. The fact confirmation was also written according to the instructions of a company official."

The prosecution ruled that although there were some inconsistencies with the facts in Mr. A's testimony based on memory, the overall intent did not differ from objective facts, so they ruled that there was no intent to perjure and dismissed the charges. This is a result of taking into account the fact that the slip with missing approval may have occurred by mistake, as claimed by Mr. A, and that it is not common sense to give a large amount of additional salary to an executive without instructions from the chairman, who has the final approval authority.

Lawyer Han Jong-hoon of Daeryun Law Firm, who represented Mr. A, said, "The crime of perjury cannot be established simply because the testimony differs from objective facts, and the witness must recognize that he or she made a false statement against his or her memory. Since the client consistently described the company's payment system and self-execution process as he remembered, he was able to receive an acquittal by legally explaining that the entire purpose of the testimony cannot be considered false based on some exceptional facts."

Reporter Jeong Cheol-wook

[View full article]
“Minor discrepancies are not perjury”… A man in his 50s who attended a trial for breach of trust and was accused of perjury was ‘not indicted’ (link)