Plaintiff

Defendant (Attorney Kim Yong-hoon, Counsel for defendant-appellant)

March 26, 2008

1. The plaintiff's claim is dismissed.

2. The costs of lawsuit shall be borne by the Plaintiff.

The defendant shall pay to the plaintiff 23,279,263 won with 20% interest per annum from the day following the delivery of a copy of the complaint of this case to the day of complete payment.

1. Basic facts

A. Transaction relation and attempted money between the plaintiff, non-party 1 corporation and the defendant

(1) Since 200, the Plaintiff supplied the instant product to Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd., which operated a factory located in ○○○○ Ri (hereinafter referred to as “instant factory”) from around 2000 to the Plaintiff’s Articles of Incorporation. As of the end of January 2005, the amount of the goods that had not been supplied to Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd. was KRW 30,631,943 (the Plaintiff recovered KRW 3,589,460 out of the above unpaid amount on February 7, 2005).

Shed Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd. suspended its business on the beginning of 2005, and the Defendant received most of the buildings, machinery and human resources of the plant of this case from Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd. at the end of January 2005, and started its business identical to Nonparty 1 Co., Ltd.

From February 1, 2005 to February 22, 2005, the plaintiff was confirmed to the effect that the defendant prepared a trade specification table in the name of the non-party 1 corporation and received the product from the defendant's employee working at the factory of this case. On February 23, 2005, the defendant issued a tax invoice stating "the supplier who received the product" as the defendant from February 28, 2005 as follows due to the change of the company name from February 23, 2005.

x) The Plaintiff supplied the Defendant with the product amounting to KRW 13,120,660 in total by November, 2005, including the supply of the product amounting to KRW 2,675,420, and the Plaintiff received the product amounting to KRW 16,883,880 in total from the Defendant for the product amounting to KRW 13,120,660 by March 18, 2005.

B. The relationship between the non-party 1 and the defendant

(1) The factory site of this case was originally owned by Nonparty 10, who is the father of Nonparty 3, the representative director of the defendant, and around January 23, 1996, Nonparty 10 invested the factory site of this case in kind in the non-party 11 corporation, who was the representative director. On September 29, 1997, the Busan District Court rendered a voluntary decision to commence the auction from Dong Branch Branch of Dong Branch of Busan District Court, and the non-party 1 corporation completed the registration of ownership transfer on February 25, 1998 after being awarded a successful bid.

D. Nonparty 2, the representative director of Nonparty 1 corporation, is between the mother and the mother of Nonparty 3, the defendant’s representative director, and Nonparty 3 also served as a director of Nonparty 1 corporation from August 12, 2000 to August 12, 2003.

On May 12, 2004, the defendant set up a head office in Yangsan-si ○○○ (hereinafter parcel number 3 omitted). On September 13, 2004, the defendant moved his head office in Yangsan-si ○○○ (hereinafter omitted) where the branch offices of the non-party 1 were located in Yangsan-si. In fact, the defendant started to manufacture the product only after he took over the factory of this case from the end of January 2005, even if there was no production record by January 2005.

Around October 5, 2005, the defendant acquired land, ground factory buildings, machinery, etc. at auction in Yangsan-si ○○○○○ (number 1 omitted) owned by the non-party 1 corporation.

【Ground of recognition】 Evidence Nos. 1 through 19, evidence No. 1, 2, 2, 3, evidence No. 5-1, 6-1 through 4, 7, and the purport of the whole pleadings

2. The assertion and judgment

A. The parties' assertion

The plaintiff asserts that the defendant is the same company as the non-party 1 corporation that was supplied with the product of this case by the plaintiff (hereinafter "the product of this case") or is merely an extension of the non-party 1 corporation, and thus, the non-party 1 corporation is obligated to pay the unpaid price of the product of this case. Accordingly, the defendant and the non-party 1 corporation are entirely separate corporations, and the defendant did not pay the above price of the product

(b) Markets:

The facts of the above recognition alone are insufficient to recognize that the defendant and the non-party 1 corporation are identical to the same corporation, or that the defendant abused the legal personality to evade the plaintiff's obligations. As seen earlier, so long as the defendant notified the plaintiff of the change of the trade name within one month after taking over the business from the non-party 1 corporation to the plaintiff within about one month, it is difficult to view that the defendant constitutes "the transferee who belongs to the trade name" as provided in Article 44 of the Commercial Act. Thus, the defendant is not liable for the repayment of the above obligations to the plaintiff of the non-party 1 corporation. This does not change because the defendant paid approximately three million won out of the above obligations of the non-party 1 corporation.

3. Conclusion

Thus, the plaintiff's claim of this case is dismissed.

Judges Kim Jong-min