President Lee Jae-myung on the 15th said there are too many provisions under current law that punish corporate activity, adding, "I'm thinking of making sweeping changes this time." Lee attended the "1st core regulation rationalization strategy meeting" held at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Seongbuk District that day and said, "Korea has far too many unnecessary punitive provisions, and they don't have much effect. There are quite a few unreasonable and pointless regulations."
Lee said, "Not long ago, I heard the United States demanded that 'when screening visas for Korean people or doing immigration checks, submit records on whether they have prior convictions.' Do you think we can submit that or not?" After asking the question, Lee said, "There are too many people with criminal records in our country. There are far too many cases where you pay a 50,000–100,000 won fine under the Framework Act on Civil Defense, the Reserve Forces Act, the Forestry Act, and the record lasts a lifetime. From their side, wouldn't they think of them as serious criminals?"
The point was that current corporate-related penalties lean toward criminal punishment and discourage management activity. Citing the breach of trust issue in particular, Lee said, "Businesspeople say that in Korea, if you make a bad investment decision, you can go to prison for breach of trust. For foreign businesspeople, that's unimaginable." Lee added, "The nature of corporations is to make judgments and decisions freely, but if this is how it is, how can you run a business when it's so risky?"
Instead, he explained it is more reasonable to place the economic burden on corporations. Lee said, "Even with industrial accident cases, trials take years, yet at best some working-level staff are briefly detained and then released, and it's not very effective," adding, "Advanced countries like the United States go in the direction of imposing enormous penalty surcharges. It hits corporations much harder."
He said the president will personally preside over meetings on regulatory reform in the future as well. The presidential office, relevant ministries, and policy officials from the ruling party will listen to on-site views from the business community and academia, then immediately push for legislation. Lee said, "Countries around the world are fiercely competing to gain the lead in future industries such as artificial intelligence, mobility, and biohealth," adding, "Because of complex interests and differences in positions, regulations are tangled like a spider web; the goal of this administration is to boldly pull them down in one go."
On this, Deputy Prime Minister for the Economy Koo Yoon-cheol said, "There were arguments that in the mid to long term we should strengthen market oversight and move toward ex post conduct regulation rather than ex ante regulation," adding that the government plans to announce first-phase reforms of economic criminal penalties, including the breach of trust offense, within this month. He added that follow-up work will continue through the end of the year, and all ministries will overhaul "at least 30%" of economic criminal penalty provisions.