Chapter 59
After thanking us, the head of the foundation left the conference room for his next appointment.
Almost immediately, the secretary came in carrying refreshments.
“Haa.”
Attorney Kim went limp all over, as if someone had drained the strength from him, and sank into his chair.
“How can one man have that much presence?”
“Really?”
“You wouldn’t know, Cha, because you’ve got the senior attorney vibe yourself, but when Head Director Ham walked in, even the other department heads stiffened up.”
Waving his hands in protest, Attorney Kim launched into story after story. “He even said to Attorney Jeon earlier, ‘You were the one in charge for the company that had friction with Miraem, weren’t you? Our legal team was stunned by the way you tried to drag down the new product.’”
It didn’t strike me as especially intimidating.
If I were the CEO, and another company was out there running viral attacks saying our product was lousy, I don’t think I’d be using very polite language either.
In any case, Attorney Kim joked that just looking at Head Director Ham made his heart pound.
He was laying the groundwork.
Attorney Kim had a habit of putting himself down before saying what actually mattered.
I’d worked a case with him before, so I knew exactly why he was doing it.
Still, we had to do this properly.
Just then, the secretary brought in barley tea, which meant it was time to address the practical issue Attorney Kim was truly afraid of.
“Attorney Kim.”
“There’s that scary voice again.”
“However you put it, nothing changes. What split are we going with for the lead counsel arrangement?”
“……”
“It seems like Head Director Ham wants me to take point on this case.”
Sure enough, Attorney Kim, who had been keeping up a half-baked façade until now, lunged in without even bothering to smile.
“How about 7 to 3 if Cha just handles the issue guidance?”
“I’m the one who brought in this case. It should be 8 to 2.”
“Eight-two?”
Gulp.
“I didn’t mishear that just now, did I?”
“No.”
He looked genuinely stunned.
“Cha, you’re not seriously saying you’re the eight, are you? Right?”
“Of course I’m the eight. They came to see me.”
“…Are you even human?”
The muttered complaint of a man who had been outmaneuvered made me laugh before I could stop myself.
“You’re laughing? Wow, so now you’re not just slick when you work.”
“I’ll take seven. I’ll provide flexible support along with the guidance. How does that sound?”
“Cha, you’ve gotten a lot mouthier since leaving Continent.”
“I should have. I run my own office now.”
“Even so, we should be taking seven. This is a one-against-many case, and we’ll have to pull in the food and pharmaceuticals team too.”
“Attorney Kim.”
I tapped his business card lightly.
“……”
If you didn’t like it, you could call me.
* * *
By the time I’d had lunch with the auntie and returned to the office, an email had arrived from Head Director Ham.
So had the materials Continent had sent over.
“Let’s start by downloading the documents Head Director Ham sent.”
While I unzipped the compressed folders one by one, I read a current-affairs weekly that had turned the Miraem kelp case into a special feature.
The case involved suspicions that Company A, which specialized in seafood processing, had exported domestically harvested kelp to China for subcontract processing, then mixed in Chinese kelp during the reimportation process and dried it before supplying it to Miraem.
“That’s unusual. If the investigation started from a tip, details about the suspect’s crime usually don’t hit the press that quickly.”
In the past, it might have been exposed immediately for the sake of the public interest.
These days, though, a company could end up facing a damages suit and losing its advertising contracts, so reporters usually held back.
“This wasn’t just a police tip. It was a media tip too.”
What’s more, the figures were precise down to the kilograms per sack and the kilograms listed on the import declarations, and the expected profits were broken down clearly as well.
Then somebody from the police, or someone connected to the case, leaked it.
I wrote down the likely names of those connected to the matter on a sheet of A4 paper and printed out the materials I’d finished reviewing.
“Looks like I’m going to have to study seaweed too.”
I poked around to see whether the National Institute of Fisheries Science had any recommended reading, then sent a message to the food and pharmaceuticals team asking if they had any recommendations.
“But first, let’s check the key statutes.”
It was time to start scribbling across the roughly 230 pages of case records with a pen.
Scratch.
Here it was.
Article 6, Paragraph 2, Item 1 of the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes would allow for enhanced punishment for violations of the Customs Act.
This part was—
Article 269, Paragraph 2, Item 1 of the Customs Act. Smuggling in or out.
And if I added the laws on country-of-origin labeling for agricultural and marine products and on food labeling and advertising—
“There are two major issues.”
I closed the last page.
Then I stretched, reaching both arms high over my head.
“For now, I should recommend a voluntary recall of Company A’s product. Otherwise, we’re going to get hit with criticism for dragging our feet.”
It would hurt sales, but there couldn’t be a boycott of Miraem as a whole.
After giving Head Director Ham a brief briefing, I sent him a text.
Buzzz.
He called right away.
“Attorney Cha, you’ve already started?”
“Yes. The Miraem legal team had prepared thoroughly, so it was fairly easy to get a handle on the case.”
“I see.”
His flat reaction to the compliment for the legal team felt oddly pointed.
I repeated the substance of the text message.
“Speed is the most important thing in this case. Wouldn’t it be best to begin with a recall?”
“……Even if we did nothing wrong?”
A recall does sound a bit negative.
A positive corporate image didn’t take long to build.
One moving story, and the brand can change.
Last year alone, a CEO who’d been accused of arranging prostitution had even thrown a public fit in court, yet the company still managed to brand itself as a good one by sponsoring independence activists for Liberation Day.
But companies that became a “social issue” because of conflicts between headquarters and dealers—pushy sales tactics, tying products together, forcing branch closures—couldn’t erase the negative image even after a decade.
Of course, plenty of those bastards were still doing the same thing now.
Still.
Head Director Ham wasn’t the sort of man who’d be ignorant of the value of corporate image.
He was someone who had steered Miraem through the IMF crisis, the Millennium bubble, the collapse of Lehman Brothers, and everything in between.
So this was probably just another way of observing what kind of person I was.
The sort of thing people do when they’re first presented with a text message and only know you through words on a screen.
“As you know, Head Director Ham, it is incredibly difficult to change a negative corporate image.”
I cited a few examples.
“Especially when you consider the time and money it takes to shift things in a positive direction, I’d say we’re already late as it is.”
“I see.”
Silence followed.
That was proof enough that he was leaning skeptical.
Which meant the thing I could use was...
“Head Director Ham, isn’t Miraem’s seventieth anniversary coming up soon? Why not make the founding celebration bigger?”
“……!”
* * *
Miraem’s legal team, Continent’s food and pharmaceuticals team, and the senior criminal team.
And me.
For this kelp case, we decided to divide the work by team.
The Miraem legal team handled the police investigation and provided the basic materials, while Continent reviewed precedents related to food cases and acted in a support role.
I took on the deeper analysis of the evidence.
“At this rate, my eyes are going to get even drier.”
Because speed mattered in this case, I’d pulled two all-nighters, and my eyes felt even more gritty than before.
After putting in eye drops and massaging my temples, I waited in Conference Room A for Continent’s representative to arrive.
July 31, 10:00 a.m.
I checked the date on my smartphone and pressed the power button.
Even though the agreed time had long since passed, no one from Continent had shown up.
Unlike the day I’d met Head Director Ham, I was wearing an ID badge that identified me as a “cooperating attorney,” but it was obvious they didn’t like the idea of being led by a lawyer who had been a senior here just a year ago.
Petty is the default.
Whether you did well or poorly—
You got flak, and you got sneers.
What had really been the worst was when I’d been asked for help, spent time digging up materials, and then they’d pretended not to receive them.
Even so, in a jungle like this, it was strangely impressive that only Attorney Kim Joo-young had managed to stay round-edged. Though hair was a forbidden topic.
Creak.
“Yo, is Cha here?”
As expected, Attorney Kim Joo-young, who’d promised to come the moment the meeting ended, arrived first.
“Good morning.”
“Traffic wasn’t bad?”
“No. No protests, and it wasn’t rush hour.”
In Seoul, other than those two things, every day was the same.
Asking that kind of question anyway meant he wanted to start a joke.
And sure enough, Attorney Kim’s eyes brightened.
“Don’t tell me you’re making a joke about a car today.”
“Aigoo, damn it. You really are a sly one.”
I was glad I’d blocked that one in advance. Jokes like that always ended up turning to hair.
I sighed inwardly and thought about how I might soothe him.
For better or worse, Kim was the one person here who would actually listen to me—and the one person who ran Continent, too.
“Go on, call me Chacha Grandpa like before.”
Because I liked tea more than coffee, and my surname was Cha, Kim had always called me Chacha Grandpa.
He’d also once had his daughter give him a red cape, but still—
“Chacha Grandpa, that never gets old.”
He grinned as he told the story of why his daughter had given him a red cape, and just then the conference room door opened.
It was a familiar lawyer.
I didn’t know his name, though.
“……”
“……”
“Attorney Gwon, come on in.”
“Yes.”
“Right, Cha. The associate and senior from the food and pharmaceuticals team are tied up with something, so they’ll join later.”
So it wasn’t the senior criminal team that had caused the problem. It was that side.
“Understood.”
“Attorney Gwon, introduce yourself.”
He only gave a slight nod.
“……”
“...Well. Cha, this is Attorney Kwon Jin-woo. You know Attorney Kwon Jin-woo, right?”
“...Huh.”
His associate told him to introduce himself, and he just sits down?
He hadn’t even offered a business card, let alone a handshake.
He had to know who the client had assigned to the case.
And he looked young, too.
What a brat.
In a legal world where people were obsessive about manners, the way he sat there with a hard stare was clearly meant to provoke.
Ironically, I didn’t care if someone lacked manners as long as they were good at their job.
The fact that I’d never heard his name when I was at Continent meant he probably wasn’t all that good.
That made me curious.
What ability had gotten Attorney Kwon Jin-woo into Continent in the first place?
Judging from how he’s acting toward Attorney Kim, he’s got blue blood.
Maybe I should poke at him a little.
Back then, I’d been so busy that unless someone had worked directly with the team or was especially skilled, there were a lot of lawyers I simply didn’t know. That actually fit the setting pretty well.
“Attorney Kim.”
“Yeah?”
As if I knew nothing at all—
I let the question drop casually.
“Is he a new associate? From the senior criminal team?”
For a moment, Attorney Kim looked flustered.