On August 3, it was confirmed that Lee Hyung-ja, the wife of Choi Soon-young (82), former chairman of the Shindongah Group, and the couple’s two children filed a lawsuit against Choi requesting verification of ownership. The city of Seoul imposed taxes of 3.8 billion won on the business income from 1998-1999, but Choi only paid 880 million won and has refused to pay the back taxes for two decades.

According to the coverage by the Kyunghyang Shinmun, on April 13, Lee, her children, Choi Ji-seon and Choi Ji-wuk, and the Torch Center for World Missions filed a lawsuit against Choi Soon-young at the Seoul Central District Court asking the court to verify the ownership of property. They claimed that some twenty works of art that the city of Seoul confiscated from Choi’s house on March 3 were their property. Currently, Choi Ji-seon is the chairperson of the Torch Center for World Missions, but on the center’s website, Lee is stated as the chairperson.

According to the information that the Seoul metropolitan government released in March, Choi Soon-young owed the city of Seoul 3.89 billion won in back taxes. The 38 Tax Collection Division recently searched Choi’s house and seized over 26.8 million won in cash along with twenty pieces of movable property, such as artworks they discovered. Each piece of artwork is estimated to be worth 50 million to 100 million won. Even if all the confiscated artworks are put up for auction and sold, it is still not enough to pay all of Choi’s back taxes.

But now Lee, her two children and the Torch Center are claiming that the artworks seized and stored by the Seoul metropolitan government are not Choi’s property. This type of civil case is usually intended to seek the interests of both parties involved--the party filing the lawsuit and the party facing the lawsuit--because if the accused party does not respond and loses the case, the city of Seoul has to return the seized property to Lee and her children.

The Kyunghyang Shinmun further confirmed that the Seoul metropolitan government submitted a warrant of attorney and applied for supplementary intervention at the court on July 5. Currently, the case record states “Intervenor for the accused, Mayor Oh Se-hoon, representative of the Seoul Metropolitan Government” next to the name of the accused, Choi Soon-young. The actual trial proceedings will be handled by the 38 Tax Collection Division in the city’s Finance Bureau and their legal representative, but legally, the name of the city’s representative was recorded as the intervenor. This is the first time that the city has intervened in a trial to collect back taxes.

An official from the Seoul metropolitan government said, “Based on the judgment that the litigation was intended for the accused to lose the case, we applied for supplementary intervention.” He further explained, “It is likely that Choi will not make an active defense (claiming his ownership), so the city plans to step up in his place and prove that the items seized by the city are his.” The metropolitan government is also searching for additional property owned by Choi, which have yet to be discovered. The city discovered Choi’s portion of real estate in Deokyang-gu, Goyang-si in Gyeonggi-do co-owned by his brothers and attached the property after obliterating all prior liens.