SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Jin Yeong Chung, Inhak Lee and Seung Hyeon Lee, Kim & Chang
complaint and the answer to the complaint. It is common that the court schedules multiple main oral hearings, each with an interval of four to six weeks. The number of main hearings may depend on the complexity of the case and, especially, the number of witnesses. Once the main hearings are closed, the court will issue its judgment on the case, typically within two to six weeks. Usually the court will deliver a copy of the judgment to the parties or their counsels. It generally takes one to two weeks for the written judgment to be delivered. High Court Appeals Appeal to the High Court must be filed within two weeks after receipt of the written judgment from the court of first instance. Similarly, an appeal to the Supreme Court must be filed within two weeks after receipt of the written judgment from the court of appellate level. Proceeding in the appellate level is the same as in the court of first instance. However, at the Supreme Court there is usually no oral hearing and the proceeding is conducted based on written submissions only. As noted above, high court proceedings gen- erally take 11 months and Supreme Court pro- ceedings generally take one year in average. This timeline may differ depending on the sub- ject matter and nature of each case.
The parties may settle a case at any time dur- ing the course of a civil proceeding by making mutual concessions. As in the case for out-of- court settlements, the parties do not need to obtain an approval from the court in order to enter into a settlement agreement. If the parties have successfully settled the case, the result of the settlement will be officially recorded in the court protocol, thereby having the effect of a final judgment so long as the parties do not with- draw from the case immediately upon reaching a settlement. Hence, such settlement protocol has an equivalent effect to a final judgment and, thus, is fully enforceable. Furthermore, during the course of a civil action, the judge may recommend a settlement and act as a mediator. If the parties do not reach a set- tlement during such mediation, then the court may issue a recommendation order for settle- ment. Unless any party files an objection to the court’s settlement recommendation order within two weeks from the date of the service of such order, the objection is time-barred and the set- tlement recommendation order shall have the same effect as a final and conclusive judgment. If, however, an objection is raised by either of the parties to the settlement recommendation ordered by the court, the proceeding will return to its status prior to the order. 8.2 Settlement of Lawsuits and Confidentiality The terms of an in-court settlement will be recorded in the hearing protocol. The pleadings and other documents from the case records are usually not available to the public, but the parties to the case, or others who can prove that they have a legitimate interest in the case, are allowed access to these records.
8. Settlement 8.1 Court Approval
In Korea, both out-of-court and in-court settle- ments are available. The settlement made out of court does not require an approval from the court.
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