When a single act constitutes two or more crimes, the penalty for the most serious crime shall be imposed(the Criminal Act §40). But when it comes to sentencing a defendant with multiple convictions at the same trial, the sentence on each conviction shall be merged to the most severe sentence(death, life imprisonment) or the aggravated sentence by one half of the maximum term/amount(determinate imprisonment, deprivation of qualification, suspension of qualification, fine, confiscation), or the sentences for each crime(different penalty) shall be imposed separately(the Criminal Act §37, §38). And when the defendant is adjudicated as committing multiple convictions spilt by an earlier final judgment with imprisonment at the following trial, the sentence on remaining convictions shall be imposed by considering equity with sentencing all convictions at the same trial, and the sentence may be mitigated or exempted(the Criminal Act §37, §39 ①). If amnesty or remittal is granted to any crime of multiple convictions, the sentence on remaining convictions shall be determined de novo(the Criminal Act §39 ③). In the execution of punishment for multiple convictions, the period of sentence already served shall be taken into account(the Criminal Act §39 ④). Recently the supreme court delivered a judgment that the defendant may be benefited by sentencing on multiple convictions only when she or he is adjudicated at the same trial or there is a possibility of adjudicating at the same trial. But when the defendant committed crimes before and after a judgment with imprisonment is finalized, she or he should be sentenced according to the equity and by the discretionary mitigation or exemption because the sentencing on multiple convictions and its execution is based on the principle of pro reo.

The original ruling took into consideration the fact that the accused was a Chaebol owner and applied the concurrent offence punishment provisions and the discretionary sentence reduction system to lower the inferior limit of the penalty, and passed a suspended sentence. In order to divert public criticism, the original ruling also ordered a huge payment as a social contribution fund as a means of a community service order according to article 62-2 of the penal code. But the Supreme Court construed the concept of a community service order in a restrictive manner as ‘work or manual labor that can be imposed by the hour up to 500 hours.' As a result of this construction the Supreme Court reversed and remanded the original judgment that ordered the payment of a social contribution fund as a community service order. The original court maintained the suspended sentence by imposing a 300 hour community service instead of the original social contribution fund payment. Consequently the fairness of the examination of the offence was greatly impaired by lowering the inferior limit of the penalty to 3 years in a case in which the accused was proven guilty of 11 separate offences including one of which the penalty is stipulated as ‘life sentence or imprisonment for more than 5 years.' This ruling disclosed the problematic issues of the concurrent offence punishment provisions and the discretionary sentence reduction system that grant judges excessive discretion on weighing penalties. It is also legislatively meaningful that the case raised issues on introducing new forms of ‘suspended sentence conditional orders' such as fund payment orders or damage recovery orders.