SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jeena Kim, Kyunghwan Lee, Eunyoung Row and Bochan Kim, Bae, Kim & Lee LLC
fines are provided to companies that demon - strate exemplary compliance performance. Separately, the ACRC issued the Integrity and Ethics Compliance Program Guideline for State- Owned Enterprises (commonly referred to as “K-CP”) in 2022. This guideline aims to encour - age public institutions to autonomously prevent corruption and to foster a culture of integrity and ethical management. The K-CP and the Fair Trade CP differ in scope and focus, as the K-CP targets domestic public enterprises, addressing ethical and anti-corruption risks, while the Fair Trade CP applies to all enterprises, focusing on managing risks related to fair trade practices. 8.3 Compliance Monitorships Non-trial resolution, such as deferred prosecu - tion agreements and non-prosecution agree - ments, are not available in South Korea. Hence, enforcement bodies do not have the option of seeking a compliance monitor as part of corpo - rate resolutions. As a party to the OECD Convention on Combat - ing Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in Inter - national Business Transactions, South Korea’s implementation and enforcement of the Con - vention is subject to comprehensive peer-review monitoring, co-ordinated by the OECD Working Group on Bribery across multiple phases. Among other matters, in June 2021 Korea sub - mitted its two-year written follow-up report to the OECD Working Group on Bribery (WGB), detailing the actions taken to address the 36 recommendations and follow-up issues from its 9. Assessment 9.1 Assessment of the Applicable Enforced Legislation
December 2018 Phase 4 evaluation. Based on this report, the Working Group concluded that Korea had fully implemented ten recommenda - tions, partially implemented 12 and not imple - mented 14. The Working Group acknowledged Korea’s efforts to strengthen its framework for inves - tigating and prosecuting foreign bribery. This includes clarifying certain aspects of the for - eign bribery offence as per Article 1 of the Con - vention, improving co-operation between the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office and the National Police Agency, allowing telecommunications interception and enhancing mutual legal assis - tance use in foreign bribery investigations. Addi - tionally, several Korean agencies (such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Korean Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, Eximbank, KOICA and National Taxation Service) have provided training and guidance to their staff on foreign bribery red flags to ensure suspected foreign bribery is reported to law enforcement. These efforts are promising, and the Working Group hopes they will lead to improved detec - tion and enforcement of foreign bribery. However, the Working Group also expressed concern over the large number of recommenda - tions that are only partially implemented or that remain unaddressed. In particular, Korea must intensify efforts to provide sufficient training and guidance to law enforcement on foreign bribery investigations to ensure proactive information- gathering during the pre-investigative stage, and to ensure that cases proceed to formal investi - gations and result in effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions (including confiscation of bribery proceeds). Additionally, Korea must address key unimple - mented recommendations, particularly regard -
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