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1. The plaintiff's claim is dismissed.
2. The costs of lawsuit shall be borne by the Plaintiff.
Reasons
1. Circumstances and relevant facts of the disposition;
A. The Plaintiff is a company established on June 18, 2015 and engaged in the distribution-sale business of functional health foods.
B. The Plaintiff sold “B”, etc. on its website from August 2015 to October 2010 of the same year, and posted a series of articles containing information on hazards, such as synthetic stasty, etc. with which chemical substances are added on the website.
The head of Yeongdeungpo-gu Seoul Metropolitan Government (hereinafter referred to as the “head of Yeongdeungpo-gu”) issued a disposition of business suspension for one month against the Plaintiff on the ground that the above notices constitute “advertisements likely to deceive or mislead consumers” in violation of Article 18(1)3 of the former Health Functional Foods Act (amended by Act No. 15480, Mar. 13, 2018; hereinafter referred to as the “former Health Functional Foods Act”).
B) On March 7, 2016, the Seoul Special Metropolitan City Administrative Appeals Commission rendered a ruling to the effect that “the Plaintiff did not commit the same kind of violation prior to the date, most of the notices were deleted, and that the disposition of business suspension for the said one-month period is modified to the disposition of imposing a penalty surcharge, taking into account the circumstances where one year has passed since the commencement of the business,” the head of Yeongdeungpo-gu imposed a penalty surcharge of KRW 44,400,000 on the Plaintiff on March 17, 2016 (hereinafter “instant disposition of imposition”).
(C) The Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the head of Yeongdeungpo-gu Seoul Administrative Court seeking revocation of the imposition of the instant penalty surcharge (2016Guhap58956), but the said court dismissed the Plaintiff’s claim on January 20, 2017 on the ground that “the imposition of the instant penalty surcharge is lawful, including where the relevant grounds for imposition are recognized.”
The plaintiff appealeded by Seoul High Court No. 2017Nu34171, but the above appellate court filed the plaintiff's appeal on May 16, 2017.