South Korean Public Institution Employee Fired for Unauthorized Mining, Court Dismisses Wrongful Dismissal Lawsuit

TechFlow News, August 11, according to Yonhap News Agency, a former department head Mr. A of the Korea Food Research Institute was dismissed for unauthorized mining in the unit's warehouse. He filed an administrative lawsuit after being fired, but was ruled against by the Seoul Administrative Court on the 3rd of last month.

According to the investigation, between February and September 2023, Mr. A unauthorizedly installed 2 GPU servers in the institute's idle promotion hall warehouse, and used institutional budget to complete air conditioning, network, and power renovation projects, cumulatively illegally mining approximately 71 million altcoins. After the incident, Mr. A also forged approval documents in an attempt to retrieve the GPU servers to destroy evidence. In addition, between August 2023 and May 2024, he used unauthorized VPNs to clock in in violation of regulations 117 times, indirectly leading to the illegal leakage of important research data of the institute.

The National Research Council of Science & Technology Audit Committee launched a special audit on him in 2024, subsequently reported to the police and requested the institute to impose dismissal. After Mr. A's internal appeals, local Labor Commission, and central Labor Commission relief applications were all rejected, he resorted to the administrative court, but still ended in defeat. The court determined that the dismissal "did not involve obvious circumstances violating social norms or abuse of discretion." In terms of criminal aspects, Mr. A was prosecuted for charges including theft, violation of the Information and Communications Network Act, and forgery of private documents. He was sentenced to 1 year in prison in the first instance, and the second instance upheld the original verdict in April this year, finalizing the sentence.