Daeryun Law Firm SKT litigation, former Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Chief Young-Gon Cho supervises
Investigation of tax evasion by large corporations, reputation as an ‘investigative expert’… The amount of damages for ‘corporate experts’, including corporate crimes, is set at 1 million won per person… The first round of civil lawsuits was filed on the 26th. “The only class action lawsuit by a large law firm... We will correct chronic problems and protect the rights of the people.” Daeryun Law Firm, which is in the process of legal proceedings in relation to the SK Telecom (SKT) SIM information hacking incident, announced on the 26th that it will take full action by appointing lawyer Young-gon Cho, a former chief of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, to take full action. Previously, on the 1st, Daeryun accused SKT CEO Yoo Yeong-sang and the head of security for malfeasance of office. He was charged with obstruction of official duties and other charges. In addition, as mentioned at a press conference on the 22nd, they announced that they plan to file a civil suit seeking compensation of 1 million won per person at the Seoul Central District Court at 10 am on the 27th. As the security system of Korea's largest telecommunication company was disabled, Daeryun viewed it as a serious social problem that goes beyond the company's security management responsibility and selected attorney Cho Young-gon, who has extensive related experience, as the overall leader of this case. Attorney Cho was involved in the case, including the collection of slush funds from former presidents and the investigation of the Four Major Rivers while serving as chief prosecutor. It has led to major events. In particular, he led the investigation into tax evasion by large corporations and developed a reputation as a 'investigative expert.' Even after retirement, he is evaluated as an expert in various fields related to corporate crime through his consulting and litigation experience at large law firms. Furthermore, Daeryun plans to take an organized response to this incident centered on the Special Action Headquarters (Special Department), an internal strategic organization. The Special Department is an organization designed to handle medium to large-sized cases that are difficult to respond to at the individual group level, such as public issues and social disputes, and is increasing the expertise and efficiency of case handling by organizing specialized lawyers appropriate for the field. In particular, Attorney Cho is serving as the head of the Special Department, so it is expected that he will be able to respond more strategically through more organic collaboration with members of the corporate legal group who are analyzing the case. In the case of U.S. telecommunication company customers who have experienced large-scale personal information leaks in the past, large amounts of money were filed through class action lawsuits. Compensation has been received. T-Mobile, one of America's top three telecommunications companies, experienced a leak in 2021 where the personal information of 76.6 million customers was leaked. Accordingly, customers filed a lawsuit in court, and T-Mobile ended up paying $350 million (approximately 459 billion won) to customers, up to $25,000 (approximately 32 million won) per person. Daeryun Law Firm believes that the scale of this SKT personal information leak is greater than past incidents. The position is that it has caused realistic inconvenience to the public by failing to fulfill its information protection obligations as a telecommunication business operator, and that such inconvenience and anxiety will continue for a considerable period of time in the future, so this is an issue that requires stricter responsibility than past cases. Attorney Young-gon Cho said, "Although personal information leaks have been repeated for several years, actual punishment or compensation has been minimal in Korea, and as a result, the damage is being passed on to the public." “I will do my best to protect the rights and interests of the people by acting as a representative of the people to correct the structure,” he said. Reporter Park Jae-gwan (paksunbi@fnnews.com)[View full article]
Financial News - Law Firm Daeryun SKT litigation, former Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Chief Young-Gon Cho takes overall command (Go here)
Law Leader - Law Firm Daeryun SKT Litigation, former Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Chief Young-Gon Cho supervises (Go here)
Korea Economic Daily - Former Seoul District Prosecutors' Office Chief Cho Young-gon, supervising the 'SKT hacking' lawsuit [Law & Biz Briefing] (Go here)
Asia Economy - Daeryun Law Firm selects lawyer Cho Young-gon, former chief of the Central District Prosecutors' Office, to take legal action against SKT (Click here)
ZD Net Korea - Daeryun Law Firm, General Manager of SKT Litigation Cho Young-gon, former Chief of Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Click here)
News 1 - Lawyer Cho Young-gon, former head of the Central District Prosecutors' Office, takes charge of the 'SKT 1,000 people lawsuit' (Go here)
Security News - [SKT Hacking Incident] Former Central District Prosecutors' Office joins SKT lawsuit... Civil and criminal litigation management (link)