According to unnamed legal circles, the Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office arrested a man in his 50s, identified only as Mr. A, on 2026-01-21 in Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, after he had been evading payment of a fine for roughly seven years. ^[1] Kim Seung-won, the candidate for South Korea's Minister of Justice, stated on 2025-06-03 that his request for expedited processing of a COVID-19 treatment's clinical trial approval by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) was a transmission of a public interest complaint, not a solicitation. ^[2] After property evaluation procedures, Mr. A's unpaid fine was calculated at 653.7 billion KRW, the highest unpaid fine ever recorded in South Korea. ^[3] In 2019, a first-instance court sentenced Mr. A to 2 years and 6 months in prison and a fine of 1.3247 trillion KRW; on appeal this was reduced to 1 year and 4 months and 662.3 billion KRW, and the Supreme Court of South Korea ultimately upheld the reduced sentence. ^[4] Under Article 69 of the South Korean Criminal Act, Mr. A was immediately imprisoned after his arrest for the unpaid fine; if he does not pay, he faces up to about 2 years and 8 months of labor detention, with release possible in 2029. ^[5] Kim Seung-won's campaign team announced on 2025-06-03 that the 2021 request was made to ensure domestic SMEs were not unfairly delayed in clinical trial procedures during the pandemic. ^[6] Prosecutors determined that requesting expedited processing of a clinical trial plan approval during the COVID-19 pandemic does not constitute an illegal solicitation. ^[7] The Seoul Western District Prosecutors' Office issued a non-prosecution decision to Kim Seung-won in December 2024, citing the lack of direct financial exchange and the difficulty in determining the illegality of the solicitation. ^[8] On October 12, 2021, Kim Seung-won sent a text message to then-MFDS Director Kim Kang-rim requesting that specific teams process a clinical trial application faster. ^[9] The controversy is compounded by Kim Seung-won's role as a co-representative of a lawmaker group advocating for the dismissal of charges against President Lee Jae-myung, which the ruling party is using to question his fitness for the Justice Ministry. ^[10] The ruling party, People Power Party, argues that a non-prosecution recommendation is neither a finding of no crime nor innocence and demands Kim Seung-won's withdrawal from the nomination. ^[11]