Dentons Lee wins landmark appellate victory in Asan Baebang Mobile District case, reversing first-instance loss and reinforcing legal certainty

Dentons Lee's exceptional expertise sets a new milestone for local housing cooperative projects in collective readjustment zones.

Dentons Lee has secured a major appellate win in the Asan Baebang Mobile District matter, delivering a complete turnaround of the first-instance outcome. The Daejeon High Court set aside the lower court's judgment and dismissed and/or rejected the plaintiffs' claims, ruling in favor of the defendant (Mayor of Asan) and the intervenor (Dentons Lee's client). The ruling removes a critical litigation-driven obstacle and strengthens legal predictability for similar projects going forward.

The matter was handled by Myoung-Ho Song, Attorney at Dentons Lee. He noted that the decision should be viewed as a textbook appellate reversal that corrects errors at first instance, and is likely to carry meaningful practical implications. In particular, he explained that the judgment clarifies that the Supreme Court's collective readjustment doctrine does not stand for the "absolute nature" of a cooperative's consent, and confirms that administrative processes should not be distorted into a tool for excluding a specific project operator.

At the center of the dispute was the plaintiffs' cooperative's attempt to interpret the Supreme Court's collective land readjustment doctrine (2017Du70946) as granting the cooperative absolute authority to refuse consent and block the project. Dentons Lee countered by clarifying the doctrine's core purpose: project efficiency within collective zones, where individual landowners' consent is not required-and where a cooperative has no legal basis to wield an arbitrary refusal to exclude a specific developer.

Dentons Lee's strategy also focused on demonstrating the cooperative's improper motive and discriminatory obstruction. The cooperative allegedly cooperated with certain blocks while selectively hindering only the intervenor's block. By framing the case around abuse of discretion and unlawful discriminatory administration, Dentons Lee strengthened the court's understanding that public-law entities cannot manipulate approvals to advance private commercial interests.

The appellate ruling further reaffirmed legal stability for recruitment report acceptance in local housing cooperative projects. The court confirmed that acceptance is a form of bound discretion: once statutory requirements (including securing the relevant percentage of usage rights) are satisfied, the authority must accept the report. Subjective opposition by the cooperative or collateral civil disputes-such as delayed interim payments-cannot, by themselves, justify refusal. This point meaningfully reduces administrative uncertainty at the early stages of comparable projects.

From correcting distorted readings of precedent to proving abuse of discretion and reinforcing bound-discretion principles, the decision stands as a model appellate victory-one that transforms a first-instance loss into a decisive win and sets a strong reference point for collective readjustment zone developments.

Dentons Lee will continue to deliver solutions that effectively protect our clients' rights, grounded in principle, supported by meticulous legal analysis, and advanced through strategic advocacy.

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