Court rejects suit by S.Korea Prez Yoon's mother-in-law in insurance benefit case

Seoul: A court on Thursday rejected an administrative litigation filed by the mother-in-law of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol to demand the state health insurance corporation scrap its bid to retrieve benefits paid to her.

The Seoul Administrative Court made the decision, as the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) has voluntarily cancelled a plan to retrieve the benefits worth about 2.3 billion won ($1.66 million) from Choi Eun-soon after the Supreme Court upheld her acquittal in 2022 of the charges related to the money, Yonhap news agency reported.

Choi was indicted for illegally operating a long-term care hospital for the elderly without a medical license in February 2013 and unlawfully accepting 2.3 billion won in state benefits from the NHIS until 2015, in collaboration with three business partners.

Initially, a district court had sentenced her to a three-year prison term in 2021. However, in January 2022, the Seoul High Court overturned the ruling, finding her not guilty of the charges. The Supreme Court approved the acquittal in December 2022.

Following the district court's ruling, the NHIS decided to retrieve the 2.3 billion won from Choi, prompting her to file an administrative suit to nullify the decision.