South Korean singer Jo Young-nam has been cleared of fraud charges after being accused of having assistants help him paint paintings to sell under his name.

The Supreme Court made the ruling Thursday, confirmed a lower court decision.

Jo had been accused for earning approximately 153-million won by selling 21 works under his own name to 17 buyers from September 2011 to January 2015, despite having done just light paint-overs on work done by assistant artists.

In his first hearing, Jo received a two-year suspended sentence after the bench ruled that the assistant artists were the true artists and the buyers had been defrauded.

However, an appellate court overturned the conviction.

The Supreme Court ruled that the buyers had no need to know that the paintings were completed with the help of assistants.

It also accepted Jo's contention that the completion of works with the help of assistants is an accepted practice in the art world.