The country's top court on Tuesday remanded the case of a former head of telecom giant KT Corp., who was convicted of running a slush fund and embezzlement.
The Supreme Court sent the case of Lee Suk-chae back to the Seoul High Court, saying there is a lack of evidence that he created a slush fund of some 1.1 billion won (US$978,000) and personally used the money.
"Based on the records provided by the defendant Lee, we cannot rule out the possibility that the money was actually spent on running the company," the court said in a press release.
Lee, who led the telecom giant from 2009 to 2013, was indicted in 2014 on charges of causing financial losses worth some 10 billion won to the country's top fixed-line operator and No. 2 mobile carrier.
A district court and the appeals court had both acquitted Lee of the malpractice charges but had different rulings on the embezzlement allegations.
Lee, a close aide to former President Lee Myung-bak, also served as a telecommunications minister in 1995 under the Kim Young-sam administration. (Yonhap)