The Seoul High Court has ruled in favor of the Maeil Broadcasting Network(MBN) cable channel, which challenged a decision by the Korea Communications Commission(KCC) to suspend the channel’s operations for six months.

With the ruling on Wednesday, the appellate court overturned a lower court ruling in favor of the regulator.

In October 2020, the KCC imposed the suspension after it found that MBN misappropriated funds in violation of the Broadcasting Act, but it deferred the suspension for six months to minimize harm to MBN’s subcontractors. 

In issuing its ruling, the appellate court said the suspension could effectively shut MBN down and that the KCC apparently had failed to consider the public value of a media organization and the impact of the suspension on freedom of broadcasting.