Fadu(파두)欺诈上市案第四次公判：检方公开2023年内部聊天记录，指其明知SpaceX/SMART等订单暂停仍强行IPO，辩方全面否认

Prosecutors presented extensive internal messages at the fourth hearing in Fadu’s criminal trial over alleged violations of the Capital Markets Act, arguing that the company pressed ahead with its initial public offering (IPO) despite knowing its revenue was set to plunge. The messages reflected the urgency of the situation, including warnings that the company would face a funding shortfall without an IPO and that actual revenue would fall far below even reduced annual targets.
Fadu’s defense denied the allegations, arguing that the revenue forecasts in its securities registration statement were, in fact, conservative estimates.
The 13th Criminal Division of the Seoul Southern District Court held the fourth hearing in the case against Fadu executives on Oct. 22. Former Fadu CEO Lee Ji-hyo, current CEO Nam Yi-hyun and executive vice president Won Jong-taek attended as defendants. A former Fadu business development (BD) team leader identified only by the surname Lee and Park Jong-hyun, vice president and head of Fadu’s system-on-chip (SoC) business team, testified as witnesses.
Prosecutors disclosed internal Microsoft Teams conversations from March 2023 involving Lee and other Fadu employees. The messages included statements such as “If we can’t go public, we’ll have a funding hole, and we have to explain it to the exchange tomorrow” and “So we’ll just go under in July.” Prosecutors presented the exchanges as evidence that Fadu faced urgent financial pressure and was compelled to push ahead with its listing. Fadu went public in August 2023.
Prosecutors also argued that Fadu misled investors by preparing revenue estimates for its securities registration statement using earlier order forecasts despite knowing that major customers, including SMART Modular, SpaceX and SK hynix, had postponed or suspended orders for the second half of 2023. Fadu had projected shipments of 3,200 SSDs for SpaceX satellite servers in the fourth quarter of 2023.
According to prosecutors, former CEO Lee Ji-hyo instructed employees through an internal messenger on May 18, 2023, to “assume no orders from SpaceX for now.” During a video conference the following day, SpaceX reportedly informed Fadu that there would be no additional purchase orders (POs) before the third quarter of 2024.
Executive vice president Won Jong-taek also wrote in an internal message in May 2023 that “even if we lower the annual revenue target from 240 billion won to 150 billion won, actual results will likely be far lower.” Prosecutors cited the statement as evidence that Fadu was already clearly aware of the sharp deterioration in its business.
Fadu’s production plan from late May 2023 had removed SpaceX orders scheduled for the second half of the year. Quanta Storage Inc., the contract manufacturer producing Fadu’s solid-state drives (SSDs), also demanded compensation for prolonged equipment downtime.
The defendants and defense witnesses, however, disputed claims that the revenue projections in the securities registration statement had been inflated. They argued that the figures were conservative estimates based on worst-case assumptions.
Lee testified that Fadu had included only about 50% of SMART Modular’s anticipated order volume in its annual revenue estimates. He said the company had also excluded more than 30,000 additional units proposed by SMART Modular in late April 2023 and a forecast for another 43,500 units communicated by Hagiwara Solutions in May 2023 from materials submitted to the Korea Exchange and other documents.
Regarding the suspension of SpaceX orders, the defense emphasized that the person who mentioned the halt during the May 19 meeting was a SpaceX technical engineer, not a purchasing department official responsible for determining order volumes. The information could therefore have been inaccurate. The defense added that former CEO Lee Ji-hyo subsequently contacted SpaceX’s sales organization separately and confirmed the possibility of orders resuming within the year.
Fadu continued preparing its products, and SSD shipments resumed toward the end of 2023. However, the products supplied were 2TB models for Falcon 9 rockets rather than the originally planned 8TB models for satellites. The overall revenue contribution was substantially smaller.
Park Jong-hyun, the second witness, testified that “the sharp decline in SSD controller shipments for Meta in 2023 resulted from issues between SK hynix and Meta.” He said Fadu believed shipments could resume in the second half of the year if commercial efforts, including controller price discounts, helped improve relations between the two companies.
According to Fadu, SK hynix informed the company in late 2022 that it expected to supply approximately 900,000 controllers annually to end customer Meta. However, the forecast was abruptly reduced to 350,000 units on Jan. 6 because of a dispute between Meta and SK hynix. At the time, SK hynix unexpectedly discontinued the existing DRAM used in SSDs for Meta and began redesigning the product. As contractual schedules continued to slip, Meta indicated that it might suspend purchase orders to SK hynix.
Fadu emphasized that it had worked with SK hynix to regain Meta’s business. The plan involved reducing the price of its third-generation SSD controllers from $43–$48 to around $30 for supply to Meta. During this process, Fadu included 434,000 controllers for Meta in its 2023 revenue forecast submitted with its preliminary listing application, exceeding the earlier forecast of 350,000 units. This appeared to contradict testimony that the estimates had been conservative.
Ultimately, Fadu failed to secure additional Meta-related orders through SK hynix. Meta switched its SSD supplier to SanDisk in 2024. Since 2024, Fadu has supplied SSD controllers to Meta through SanDisk.