온라인 바카라

1. Case summary

① Who did Barun Law represent?
Attorneys Choi Yeong-Noh and Han Suh-hee represented certain users of Coinrail who sustained 온라인 바카라 from the leak of cryptocurrencies caused by hacking

② Case background
The defendant suffered 온라인 바카라 from a hacking crime while operating a cryptocurrency exchange, Coinrail. As a result, 40 billion won worth of cryptocurrencies such as PundiX, Ethereum, Nfur, and Storm were leaked. Accordingly, the defendant frozen transactions on all accounts and closed the exchange, and the plaintiffs requested the defendant to return the virtual currency deposited in each account. However, the defendant did not comply with the plaintiffs' request even after the resumption of the transaction. In the end, the plaintiffs brought a lawsuit seeking the return of the virtual currency deposited into the defendant.


2. Issues

The defendant argued that it was not liable for the alleged non-performance of the 온라인 바카라 of cryptocurrencies since it had received security assessment from an IT security consulting firm and the Korea Internet & Security Agency before the hacking incident, and that it had executed security-related contracts. The issues in this case were whether the defendant was attributable to the non-fulfillment of the virtual currency 온라인 바카라 obligation and whether the defendant was liable to the plaintiffs for the non-fulfillment of the virtual currency 온라인 바카라 obligation.


3. Our argument and role

There were very few cases in which users of cryptocurrency exchanges won a claim for damages against the cryptocurrency exchange, claiming that they suffered 온라인 바카라 from hacking. We asserted that the claim against the defendant was a claim for the return of deposited items (i.e., virtual currency) and deposited money (i.e., cash) according to the virtual currency deposit contract (i.e., deposit contract). We checked the market price, closing price, and exchange rate of the virtual currencies as of the time when the plaintiffs had requested for return. Then, we calculated the Korean won amount of the virtual currencies, and claimed damages against the defendant. As a result, the court accepted most of our arguments and cited most of the plaintiffs' claims based on the Korean won-equivalent amount calculated by us.


4. Decision

The court considered that the 온라인 바카라 obligation had become impossible to be performed as the virtual currencies kept in electronic wallets linked to users or exclusively used for making withdrawals had been leaked by the hacking incident, and the defendant was obligated to pay the amount equivalent to the market price for the virtual currencies to the plaintiffs as compensation for damages caused by the defendant’s refusal or the defendant’s inability to perform the 온라인 바카라 obligation. The court also precluded the defendant’s argument that it was not liable for its refusal or inability to perform the 온라인 바카라 obligation.


5. Implication

Despite 온라인 바카라 suffered by the users from hacking of the exchange, they did not receive any practical protection so far as the exchange voluntarily compensated 온라인 바카라. In addition, it was difficult to clearly find that the exchange was attributable to the 온라인 바카라 because there was no apparent failure on the part of the exchange such as failure to restrict withdrawal from the affected wallets. However, taking the users’ side, the court precluded the argument made by the exchange that it was not attributable to the non-performance of the return of the virtual currency by taking account of the following facts that the hacking incident had occurred in the domain under the control of the exchange and the security level of the affected electronic wallets was inappropriate. This case will serve as a legal precedent of future similar cases.


ㅁ Choi Yeong-Noh and Han Suh-hee