“Suers” Run Wild

Even in court, “fakes” are widespread.

Using fake IDs, professional “suers” are pretending to be creditors (plaintiff) in court and pressuring the debtors (defendant) for money after winning the case.

Instead of suing customers who are not repaying loans or down payments, financial agencies and installment companies are selling bonds to these suers at a cheap price, therefore inciting illegal lawsuits.

First Disclosure of Fake Proxy Lawsuit-

K, a judge in Seoul Central District Court who is responsible for petty civil affairs cases (cases in which less than 20 million won is involved), discovered on May 26 that J Mutual Savings Bank, the plaintiff, was lacking certain lawsuit documents.

K called the bank employee whose name was listed on the bill of complaint as the one in charge of the lawsuit and asked him to supplement the documents. Instead of a bank employee, however, this person turned out to be an employee in company W that specializes in obtaining other people’s debts.

According to the Civil Proceedings Act only a lawyer can represent another in a lawsuit. However, as an exception, the act states that certain small cases involving less than 20 million won worth of credit loans and down payment can have an employee of the company represent the company and file suit like a lawyer.

K found out that company W was buying bonds at a low price from J Bank and receiving money from actual debtors by suing them. K said, “Loan agencies sell the bonds to the bond collecting companies at only 10 percent of face value perhaps because they think that money will be lost anyway.” Therefore, bond collecting companies buy 10 million won worth of bonds at only one million won and later sue the debtor to receive 10 million won plus overdue interest.

K said, “The employees of company W have been representing thousands of illegal lawsuit cases since March last year. Such cases are so frequent they cannot be searched in the Court’s computer network.”

Even the Court is Helpless-

The Attorney Act states that illegal proxy lawsuits are punishable by a sentence of up seven years or a fine of 50 million won. However, according to K, “It is desirable for the prosecution to initiate the investigation, but it is difficult for the court to request an investigation first.”

Also, there are no grounds for punishing financial agencies that have assisted such illegal activities.

Ji-Seong Jeon verso@donga.com