The Supreme Court said, "Performance of illegal solicitations, violation of the Solicitation Prohibition Act even without compensation."

The Supreme Court ruled that if a public official who received an illegal request performed his/her duties according to the request, he/she will be guilty of violating the anti-graft law regardless of whether he/she is paid or not.

The Supreme Court upheld the original ruling last month that sentenced A, the head of the Korea Environment Corporation, to six months in prison and two years of probation for violating the anti-graft law.

Mr. A was put on trial in October 2018 on charges of raising the grade of packaging collected by Company B after receiving a request from Company B's CEO, who collected and selected packaging materials, and handed them over to recycling companies.

The anti-graft law considers it an illegal solicitation to require public officials in public institutions to evaluate or exercise matters that do not belong to their authority in violation of the law.

The Supreme Court explained that A's act of giving excessive evaluation scores at the request violates business processing standards and is against equity and clearly violates the purpose of work.