The costs of appeal are assessed against the Defendants.

1. A shareholder may request, at any time during business hours, the inspection and copying of the roster of beneficial shareholders as to whether the right to request inspection and copying of the roster of beneficial shareholders is recognized (Article 396(2) of the Commercial Act). A beneficial shareholder as prescribed by the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act (hereinafter “Capital Markets Act”) may also request such inspection and copying of the roster of beneficial shareholders.

(Article 315(2) of the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act provides that the purpose of this Act is to protect shareholders by allowing shareholders to exercise shareholders' rights effectively and to protect the interests of the company at the same time.

In addition, it also has the function of preventing abuse of shareholder's rights by allowing minority shareholders to jointly exercise shareholder's rights or recommend to exercise voting rights by proxy with other shareholders.

However, since the beneficial shareholder registry prepared with respect to listed stocks deposited in the Korea Securities Depository pursuant to the Capital Markets Act has the same effect as the shareholder registry under the Commercial Act (Article 316(2) of the Capital Markets Act), there is no reason to treat the same differently from the shareholder registry in determining whether to recognize the claim for inspection

Therefore, Article 396(2) of the Commercial Act shall apply mutatis mutandis to cases where a beneficial shareholder requests to peruse or copy the roster of beneficial shareholders.

The scope of permission for perusal or copy is limited to the matters to be entered in the register of beneficial shareholders, not to the whole matters to be entered in the register of beneficial shareholders, but to those falling under the “matters to be entered in the register of beneficial shareholders” such as the name and address of beneficial shareholders, and the type and number

To this extent, it cannot be said that the reading or copying of the list of beneficial shareholders is against the Personal Information Protection Act that limits the collection of personal information or the provision of personal information to a third party.

The judgment below

Examining the reasoning of the lower judgment in light of the legal doctrine as seen earlier, the lower court’s respective list of beneficial shareholders of this case.