SOUTH KOREA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dongju Kwon, Changkwon Kim, Sejung Lee and Yoon Sun Kim, Yoon & Yang LLC
Document Production Under the CPA, a party may apply to the court for an order for document production. The appli - cation should specify the document label and its purport, the document holder and the facts to be proven, as well as the reason why such document should be submitted (Articles 345 and 347). Further, upon the party’s application, the court may order the document holder to state the document label and purport, etc (Article 346). The document holder should only submit documents under court order in any of the fol - lowing cases (Article 344): • when the holder has the documents cited in the lawsuit; • when the applicant holds a judicial right to demand that the document holder send or show such documents; and • when the documents have been prepared for the benefit of the applicant or prepared with respect to a legal relationship between the applicant and the document holder. Moreover, the UCPA stipulates that the court may, at a party’s request, order the other party to submit materials necessary for the assessment of damage caused by the infringement of busi - ness interests in trade secret misappropriation lawsuits (Article 14-3). 5.8 Maintaining Secrecy While Litigating Under the UCPA, in trade secret misappro - priation lawsuits related to the infringement of business interests, the court may, at a party’s request, order the other party, its legal counsel or any other entity that has acquired the trade secrets due to such lawsuit to not use such trade secrets for purposes other than for continuing the lawsuit nor to disclose these trade secrets to others, provided that the applicant shows or vindicates that the evidence contains or would
te civil seizure of accused products in a trade secret case. The court may order necessary measures to prohibit or prevent misappropria - tion, and such necessary measures include a seizure order ex parte. For the execution of the order, the bailiff would be dispatched to seize the accused products and/or the equipment provided in such misappropriation. The require - ments for preliminary injunction are explained in 7.1 Preliminary Injunctive Relief . 5.7 Obtaining Information and Evidence Korea does not have a discovery process where parties are subject to the general document preservation and provision (production) require - ments. The party bearing the burden of proof in the adversarial system is responsible for fact- gathering, including evidence collection and submission. Parties may collect evidence even before the lawsuit’s filing and submit evidence to the court until the end of hearings. The CPA has a principle of free evaluation of evidence. In this regard, there is no limit on the admissibility of evidence for all evidentiary methods. For example, documents prepared to prove the disputed issues after filing the lawsuit, hearsay evidence and written unconfirmed judg - ments are admissible. Examining Evidence in Advance Under the CPA, even before the lawsuit’s filing, a party may request the court to conduct the examination of evidence in advance, if using such evidence would be difficult unless the examination of evidence is conducted (Article 375). All types of evidentiary methods (includ - ing witness examination, expert examination, appraisal, documentary evidence, inspection and examination of parties) are subject to such examination in advance – ie, preservation of evi - dence.
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