President Lee Jae-myung on the 11th again stressed the need for a sweeping overhaul of how economic crimes are sanctioned, during a briefing by the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Data Agency held in Sejong. Citing Coupang, which is embroiled in a recent personal data leak controversy, he noted that the current criminal punishment system has limited effect.
The president said, "In the economic field, even if you punish breaking the law to make money, it is not the market that gets punished but the working-level person, and investigations and trials take five to six years and consume enormous national capacity, but in fact there is no sanction effect," adding that a response centered on economic sanctions is needed.
The president went on, "What '-pang' is it this time? They also keep breaking the law there. They won't be afraid at all of punishing those people," targeting Coupang, where a personal data leak occurred.
The president emphasized that to induce corporations' motivation to comply, an approach that directly imposes expense burdens is more effective than criminal punishment. He said, "We need to impose appropriate economic burdens so they will judge what constitutes an economic loss and what is a gain."
He also pointed out as a problem that the scope of the economic criminal penalty system is set excessively wide. The president said, "To maintain national order, there are various tools such as criminal punishment, penalty surcharge, fines, and administrative dispositions, but there are too many criminal provisions. It is said to be about three times that of Germany," and added, "It punishes everything. We should impose economic sanctions; criminal punishment only consumes national capacity, so isn't that why we decided to change it?"
The president directed Deputy Prime Minister and Minister Koo Yun-cheol of the Ministry of Economy and Finance to expedite the work of overhauling the economic criminal penalty system. The president said, "If you have created a task force, let's pick up the pace. Speed is life."