Developers at IRONMACE have denied allegations of leaking trade secrets from Nexon's unreleased project, 'P3'.

The first trial for IRONMACE CEO Choi Ju-hyun and two other individuals, identified as Mr. Hyun and Mr. Lee, was held on the 15th at the Suwon District Court, Seongnam Branch, under the 9th Criminal Division. Mr. Hyun and Mr. Lee were previously responsible for art on 'P3'.

Nexon had previously filed both criminal and civil lawsuits, alleging that personnel who were developing its internal project 'P3' stole data to develop 'Dark and Darker'.

In its summary of the indictment, the prosecution stated that defendant Choi transferred 9190 files from the victim company's server to a personal server on March 6, 2021, and leaked files containing planning directions on May 3 of the same year. The prosecution added that defendant Hyun copied files onto a portable storage device (USB) and removed them on June 29, 2021, while defendant Lee transferred two files to a personal cloud account on August 6, 2021.

The prosecution further explained that the defendants used the victim company's property for 'Dark and Darker' modeling work, saving 35 files to a IRONMACE-managed repository.

"Counsel for defendant Choi denied the charges. The defense attorney stated, "An error occurred with the USB provided by the prosecution for evidence review, preventing us from verifying the contents of the criminal list files," adding, "We will submit a document addressing the individual criminal charges after analyzing the file contents.""

"In a press briefing following the trial, the defense countered, "We plan to clarify during the trial process that there was no illicit intent at the time of acquisition.""

"Counsel for defendant Hyun acknowledged the act of copying the files but denied any external leakage or illicit intent. The attorney argued, "The files were taken with permission for portfolio purposes," and claimed, "The 35 files in question are purchased assets, not trade secrets, and no technical expertise was required for their processing.""

The court accepted the defendants' request and scheduled the next hearing for September 3 at 11:20 a.m. During that session, the court will confirm the defendants' positions on the evidence list and hear a presentation from defendant Hyun's side regarding the asset file modification process.