Talks have begun to grant the Financial Supervisory Service special judicial police (special police) the authority to independently detect and investigate suspected crimes. At the same time, discussions are expected to ramp up on expanding staffing to boost the capabilities of the joint task force to eradicate stock price manipulation, which uncovered last year's Nos. 1 and 2 large-scale "ruin-your-life stock rigging" cases.
According to the financial authorities on the 4th, the government, led by the Office for Government Policy Coordination, has decided to begin discussions on strengthening the role of the FSS capital markets special police, including granting them authority to initiate investigations based on their own detection.
Before this, the Financial Services Commission and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) reportedly reached a degree of consensus on granting the FSS capital markets special police authority to initiate investigations based on their own detection at a meeting late last month reviewing the response system to unfair trading.
The special police system grants limited investigative powers to civil servants of relevant administrative agencies to improve the efficiency of investigating crimes in specialized fields. Currently, the FSS special police are limited to initiating and conducting investigations into crimes specified in the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act only for "cases under prosecutors' investigative command."
To grant the special police authority to initiate investigations based on their own detection, the FSS Special Judicial Police Management Rules must be revised. Although this is an FSS enforcement regulation, it effectively falls under the influence of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), which can order corrections.
The joint task force currently has a total of 37 members, consisting of the Director General and staff from the Financial Services Commission (FSC) (4), the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) (20), and the Korea Exchange (KRX) (12). Plans to increase this to around 50 are reportedly under review.