Tag: Korean Law Firm

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We’ve been asked about a criminal charge against an adultery under Korean criminal law quite often.  Foreign employees in Korean should be cautious that adultery is a crime under Korean law.  Here is a real example of such a case where a foreign officer committed an adultery and the company(employer)’s legal concern made them ask for some legal consultation to our law firm regarding the adultery law and criminal law process in Korea.

Q) Mr. XX, who is a head director of our company, committed an adultery and was charged by the Korean prosecutor.  He has confessed his guilty and the prosecutor demanded one year’s imprisonment for his crime to the court.  If the court finalizes that Mr. XX is guilty, does that mean Mr. XX will be imprisonment for one year or lesser?

A) Finding guilty does not always mean Mr. XX will be imprisoned.  The Court may SUSPEND the imprisonment for certain years even though Mr. XX is guilty.  The Korean Criminal Act provides that a married person who commits adultery shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than two years.  However, the Act also provides the execution of the sentence for an adultery can be (more…)

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We’ve been asked about this issue from U.S. lawyers or U.S. law school students quite often.  As reported earlier this month, the Foreign Legal Consultant Act was approved by the National Assembly.  The Act allows law firms from the United States and countries which have free trade agreements with Korea to set up local branches to provide legal consulting services.

However, in order to qualify as local consultants, foreign firms will not be allowed to hire locally qualified lawyers. Foreign lawyers cannot be self-employed consultants, (more…)

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Today it was reported that 2,078 customers of Auction(the “Company”), the largest on-line shopping mall which has almost 18,000,000 people as its registered users, filed a lawsuit against the Company alleging it accidentally had leaked millions of files containing personal information about its customers.

Previously on February, the Company announced its sever had been hacked by allegedly a Chinese hacker.  However the Company has not cleared up to what extent personal information had been leaked by the accident.  Not satisfied by the Company’s handling, the customers jumped into a lawsuit.  The plaintiffs are seeking 2,000,000won(approximately 2,000 US dollars) per person.

There has been several internet personal information leakage cases.  For example, (more…)

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“X Company” is a U.S. company that provides and sells Software Products in Korea through the appointment of local distributors.  “X Company” would like to review its standard distribution contracts (the “Reseller Terms”) with Korean distributors and want to know whether there are any clauses in the Reseller Terms that may be deemed illegal under the laws of Republic of Korea.

In view of the nature of the Reseller Terms, under the Monopoly Control and Fair Trade Act of Korea (“MCFTA”), the type of the Reseller Terms may be characterized as both a “copyright license contract” and an “import distribution contract.”  MCFTA has published guidelines on the types and criteria for determining unfair business practices in international contracts (the “Guidelines”), and the Reseller Terms would need to be reviewed against the Guidelines.

For example, paragraph 11 of Article 3 (Transfer of Improvement Technology) of the Guidelines provides that “When a licensor requires a licensee to provide the licensor, without compensation, with the ownership of or the exclusive (non-exclusive) right to use the technology (product) improved by the licensee…,” the practice shall be unfair.

Moreover, because the Reseller Terms is a standardized type of contract applicable to all local distributors, the Reseller Terms may come into the purview of the Regulation of Standardized Contracts Act (“RSCA”).  The purpose of RSCA is to prevent business entities from imposing standardized contracts on their customers containing unfair terms and conditions that (more…)

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Recently we got a question from a foreigner.  She was wondering if she could take any legal action against her Korean ex-employee who harassed her by spreading false information about her and telling the customers not to do a business with her.

From a perspective of Korean Criminal law, currently there is no general legislation on regulating the harassment or stalking.  The respective laws have its own regulations on which behavior constitutes a certain crime and what remedies the harassed party is entitled to seek.

Generally speaking, a person who defamed another by publicly alleging facts (false or even true) shall be punished by imprisonment or imprisonment without prison labor for not more than 2 years or by a fine not exceeding five million won according to Criminal Act of South Korea.

Notably, any person who sends out letters or text messages inflicting fear or apprehension to another person repeatedly shall be punished by imprisonment for not more than 1 year or (more…)

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Here comes another news warning hemorrhaging savings banks of south Korea.  The news reported that the Financial Services Commission yesterday ordered nearly bankrupt Hyundae Mutual Savings Bank, which is nothing to do with Hyundai group, to suspend its operation for six-months.   The news added that, according to industry insiders, six savings banks of 108 nationwide as of late December failed to meet the minimum 5 percent requirement for capital adequacy (more…)

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Recently I got a question about a jurisdiction of legal dispute arising of a labor contract made between a Korean company and a foreigner here in Korea.  The foreigner told me his contract had an exclusion clause which ruled out the jurisdiction of Korean court.

According to Article 2(1) of the Private International Act, a Korean court shall have the jurisdiction over an international trial in the case where the parties or the issue has substantial relation to South Korea, and according to Article 28(5) of PIA, the parties of an employment contract may make an agreement on the international jurisdiction only in cases where a dispute has already occurred or an employee is allowed to bring a lawsuit to a court in addition to the governing court in accordance with the PIA.

So even if parties of an employment agreement had agreed to rule out the jurisdiction (more…)

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I found a very informative article for foreigners interested in Korean project financing market.  Korean project financing deal is largely dominated by real estate development financing deal.  The author addressed current situation and problem of Korean Savings banks regarding withering Korean project financing market.  I have seen many bank clients considering extension of their project financing or ABCP terms due to the withering project-financing market and (more…)