IU's 30,000,100-Won Damages Claim... The Meticulous Reason for Adding Exactly 100 Won

[Financial News] The legal community is paying attention to the meticulous legal strategy behind the 30,000,100-won claim for damages listed in the complaint by singer and actor IU (born Lee Ji-eun), after she succeeded in obtaining the identity of an anonymous user posting malicious comments on an overseas social media service (SNS).
According to legal and music industry sources on the 12th, Noel Wise, a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, granted a discovery request filed by IU's side against Meta on the 5th (local time) and authorized the issuance and service of a subpoena seeking account-related records. The decision came 113 days after the application was filed in July, and IU's side submitted proof of service the following day.
Earlier, on June 25, IU filed a defamation damages lawsuit with the Seoul Central District Court against the anonymous operator of an account on Threads, an SNS platform run by Meta. The suit alleges that the account defamed her by publishing at least 52 posts and comments containing false claims—including plagiarism allegations and speculation that she was a Chinese national—from March to October last year.
In the domestic entertainment industry, cases involving anonymous commenters on SNS platforms headquartered overseas have often stalled at the stage of serving a complaint in a Korean court, because it is difficult to identify the users' names and addresses. But since IVE's Jang Won-young's side used the U.S. court discovery process to identify a cyber wrecker, a powerful precedent has taken shape: Korean stars are pressuring overseas platform headquarters directly to hold the anonymous commenters accountable to the end. Under this discovery order, Meta must respond within 21 days of the subpoena's service as to whether it will provide identifying information, including the subscriber's name and email address, phone number, and access records.
What has particularly drawn the legal community's attention is the 30,000,100-won in damages IU's side claimed in the complaint. Under the current Trial of Small Claims Act, cases with an amount in controversy of 30 million won or less are classified as small claims. To expedite proceedings, the written judgment may omit specific reasons for the ruling and state only the conclusion. But if the amount claimed exceeds 30 million won by even just 100 won, the case proceeds as an ordinary single-judge trial, and the court must detail its reasons in the written judgment.
The 30,000,100-won figure is therefore seen as a calculated move to leave a clear record in an official written judgment of the unlawful conduct and legal liability of the person who posted the malicious content, and to use it as a basis for further legal action.
IU's side also expressly designated this as a “partial claim.” This would avoid the burden of paying a substantial court filing fee upfront when seeking damages worth hundreds of millions of won from the outset, while the defendant's identity is still unconfirmed. The aim is to substantially increase the amount claimed once the perpetrator's identity is established, after precisely calculating legal costs and reputational harm arising from advertising-model activities.
IU's side plans to file a motion in a Korean court to correct the defendant's identification and proceed in earnest with the underlying damages lawsuit as soon as it obtains identifying information, including the defendant's name and address, from Meta.

[email protected] Mun Yeong-jin Reporter