Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon sent a letter to Phi-City attached with a contract to sell land located in Yangjae-dong, Seocho-gu in December 2010, when he serve as the city’s mayor. In a parliamentary inspection in 2008, Oh said that he was paying great attention to the Phi-City project. However, in a TV debate of mayoral candidates for the by-election in April, Oh referred to the Phi-City project and said, the project “had nothing to do with the city of Seoul when I was in office.” The police are currently investigating him for distributing false information based on the Public Official Election Act.

On September 8, the Kyunghyang Shinmun obtained the contract between the Seoul metropolitan government and Phi-City drawn up on December 16, 2010 through the Democratic Party of Korea advisor Kim Wu-cheol. The contract was a private contract (not open to bidding) signed by the city of Seoul, which promised to sell 1,089 pyeong (3,600 m2) of land in Yangjae-dong at 27.26 million won per pyeong (approx. 3.3 m2) for a total of 28.6 billion won.

Oh was involved in the Phi-City project even before the final notice of the contract. During a parliamentary inspection of the Seoul metropolitan government in October 2008, when former Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Sung-gon asked Oh about the permit for the Phi-City project, he answered, “The city is paying considerable attention to this project, because as the developer of the project, it can create considerable profits.” In December 2007, when Oh was struggling with the approval of Phi-City, he received a report from the director overseeing the project on ways to revise the function of Phi-City.

The construction company, Phi-City, planned a massive project to purchase the site of the freight terminal in land-lot 225 in Yangjae-dong and construct a department store and logistics center there. The project received a construction permit in November 2009 after it was passed in three reviews by the Seoul metropolitan government’s construction committee in 2008. This all happened when Oh was the city’s mayor. Phi-City had trouble reimbursing the loans from its creditors and eventually the project collapsed.

But in a TV debate with Park Young-sun, the Democratic Party of Korea’s mayoral candidate, on April 5, 2021, Oh said, “The Phi-City project had nothing to do with the city of Seoul when I was in office.” He also said, “From what I remember, it was not a project that was approved during my term. You can check later.” Progressive civic groups reported Oh claiming, “His mention of false information affected the election.” The Anti-Corruption and Public Crime Investigation Division of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency investigating this case conducted a search and seizure of the Seoul metropolitan government on August 31 and secured documents on the approval of the Phi-City project.

On September 2, Oh said, “I tried to recollect the issue and after listening to others, I was able to remember some of the details, but that project was cancelled after it hit an obstacle. So for me, the Phi-City remained a project that never went through.” The Seoul mayor added, “I might not have remembered the project, but if they (the police) asked the city once to check the facts, we could give them all the information on how the project was handled.”