1. The Defendants jointly share KRW 50,000,000 with respect to the Plaintiff and 5% per annum from July 11, 2016 to June 20, 2019.

1. Basic facts

A. Defendant F Co., Ltd. (hereinafter “F”) is a press organization that issues F in a comprehensive daily newspaper, and Defendant B is a representative director and publisher of Defendant F, Defendant C is an editor, Defendant D is an editor, and Defendant E is a social father.

B. On July 11, 2016, Defendant F, as the title “G” on the first page of the F Newspaper, published an article stating “The Prosecutor confirmed that the amount of money and valuables KRW 5 billion from the end of the last year to the Plaintiff from the end of the H group I I, and the Prosecutor had already known that the Plaintiff would have raised the relevant funds through any of the H group affiliates, and that the source of the funds and the delivery of money would be specified until the accurate time. The Prosecutor posted to the Plaintiff an article stating “The Prosecutor is under review of the application of comprehensive bribery along with the suspicion of the violation of Political Funds Act following the receipt of illegal political funds” (hereinafter “instant article”).

C. However, the Plaintiff did not receive money and valuables from the Chairperson, and the Plaintiff received KRW 5 billion in the process of prosecutor's investigation.

There was no confirmation of the source or time of delivery of the funds. D.

Defendant E, who reported and drafted the instant article on January 25, 2018, was sentenced to a judgment of two-year suspended sentence (Seoul Central District Court 2016Kadan8906), and on August 17, 2018, the appeal was dismissed on August 25, 2018 (Seoul Central District Court 2018No543). The said judgment of conviction became final and conclusive on August 25, 2018.

[Reasons for Recognition] Facts without dispute, Gap evidence Nos. 1, 4, and 5 (including virtual numbers; hereinafter the same shall apply), the purport of the whole pleadings

2. The judgment on the cause of the claim is based on the empirical rule that Defendant E prepared and posted the instant article stating false facts about the Plaintiff’s suspicion of the crime and the prosecution’s progress of the investigation against the Plaintiff, and that the cause of the damage to the Plaintiff would have occurred.