The Supreme Court has confirmed a suspended prison sentence for Jeon In-jang, the former chairman of Samyang Foods, who was accused of embezzling company funds through the issuance of false tax invoices via paper companies. This decision comes seven years after he was indicted.
On September 10, the Supreme Court's second division, led by Justice Oh Kyung-mi, dismissed Jeon's appeal regarding charges of violating the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes (issuing false tax invoices) and upheld the original sentence of three years in prison, suspended for five years, along with a fine of 19.1 billion won.
Additionally, Samyang Foods and two of its affiliates, which were also indicted for violating tax laws, were each fined 10 million won.
Jeon, the eldest son of the company's founder, was charged in December 2019 for issuing a total of 538 billion won in false invoices and tax documents through two paper companies between 2010 and 2017.
In the first trial, Jeon received a sentence of three years in prison, suspended for five years, and a fine of 19.1 billion won. However, the second trial reduced his sentence to one year and six months in prison, suspended for three years, and a fine of 650 million won, acquitting him of tax law violations.
In February of last year, the Supreme Court ruled that the second trial's acquittal on certain transactions was also related to the issuance of false tax invoices and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court. In November of the same year, the retrial court imposed the same sentence as the first trial: three years in prison, suspended for five years, and a fine of 19.1 billion won. Jeon appealed this decision, prolonging the legal proceedings.
Previously, Jeon was also indicted for embezzling over 4.9 billion won by falsely claiming that Samyang Foods had received packaging boxes and food materials from paper companies between 2008 and 2017.
In 2019, he was sentenced to three years in prison for this case and was taken into custody. The following year, the Supreme Court upheld the sentence, and Jeon completed his term and was released in January 2022.
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.