SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Sung Jin Kim, Jay J. Kim, Chunsoo Lee and Joe Kim, Kim & Chang
year. KATS plans to conduct a total of five safety surveys on 4,700 products in 2025. The Roadmap also indicates KATS’s plan to pri - oritise safety policies related to overseas direct- purchase products, unsafe local products (hav - ing a track record of causing fires), and increased co-operation among the relevant agencies to track illegal products in the market. The 2025 Roadmap reflects KATS’s commitment to implementing more proactive market moni - toring and investigation, especially for products that have raised safety concerns among the general public. Companies doing business in Korea, especially those offering products list - ed among the “priority products” , are advised to review their products’ compliance with the Korean product safety laws. Legislative Movements to Ease the Burden of Proof in Consumer Claims There are ongoing legislative efforts to enact laws that would further ease the consumer’s burden of proof in product safety-related cases. In the 22nd term (2024 to 2028) of the National Assembly (NA), eight bills addressing this sub - ject were introduced, although none made it to the plenary session vote of the NA. As an illustrative example, these bills propose the following changes in the law: • lowering the burden of proof in auto acci - dent cases that require expertise in complex machinery; • shifting the burden of proof to the manu - facturers to demonstrate that the alleged damage was not caused by a defect in their product; or • adopting a more robust document production order mechanism in product liability cases.
While such legislative proposals have not received significant political attention do date, with the incoming progressive government, there may be a new drive to advance these pro - posals through the NA. Any such movement is likely to be met with strong opposition by busi - nesses and industries, which may lead to an active public debate about the pros and cons of such reforms. 3.2 Future Policy in Product Liability and Product Safety The AI Act Takes Effect in January 2026 The Framework Act on the Development of Arti - ficial Intelligence and the Establishment of Foun - dation for Reliability (the “AI Act” ) is expected to take effect in January 2026. The AI Act is the first Korean law that regu - lates the AI industry and related products and services. The AI Act introduces various defini - tions such as “AI Developer” and “AI User” and imposes duties on these actors. For instance, Article 31 of the AI Act imposes consumer dis - closure obligations on companies that are AI Users, requiring them to inform consumers when a product or service is generated with the use of high impact AI or generative AI. Article 32 of the AI Act requires the AI User to take certain meas - ures to ensure the safety of the AI system. Article 34 imposes additional obligations on AI users who use high impact AI that may have a material impact on the life, safety and fundamental rights of individuals. The AI Act also includes provi - sions enabling its applicability overseas. The introduction of the AI Act may have a tan - gible impact on businesses in Korea that gener - ate products or services made using AI and may open new product liability-related legal issues and enforcement efforts by competent agencies.
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