The National Assembly has even pulled out the option of filing a complaint against Bom Kim, chair of the Coupang Inc. board (Coupang's parent company), who said he will not attend the Coupang hearing, but analysts say the measure lacks teeth. With Kim, a U.S. citizen, notifying the Assembly that he will not attend due to being overseas, enforcement would be difficult, and even if he is charged, the case would likely end with a fine of hundreds of thousands of won.
According to the National Assembly and others on the 16th, the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee will hold a hearing on the 17th regarding the Coupang situation. The committee selected Kim, as well as former CEOs Park Dae-jun and Kang Han-seung, as key witnesses, but they submitted a written statement explaining his absence.
The National Assembly has three systems for publicly summoning private citizens: hearings, parliamentary investigations, and parliamentary inspections. However, private citizens are not necessarily required to appear before the Assembly. Typically, a witness is served in advance with a summons that includes the gist of the questioning, and if the witness has unavoidable circumstances, they can submit a written statement explaining his absence by three days before the requested appearance date to provide an explanation.
Kim's citing of a "global corporations CEO's official schedule" is seen as an attempt to establish such legitimacy. In response, lawmakers from the Democratic Party of Korea on the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee said on the 15th that they "will review and pursue legal action, including filing a complaint," and also signaled they would push for a parliamentary investigation.
However, submitting a statement does not automatically confer immunity. If the National Assembly deems the reason unjustified, it can compel the witness to appear. That said, the level of enforcement differs by procedure.
Parliamentary inspections and parliamentary investigations can issue a warrant to accompany a witness upon a standing committee vote, but hearings are largely procedural steps to verify facts during agenda deliberations, so applying an accompaniment order directly is considered difficult under common legal interpretations. For that reason, in cases of nonattendance at hearings, committees often vote to file a complaint.
If a complaint is filed, the case moves to prosecution and trial. The Act on Testimony and Appraisal by the National Assembly provides for imprisonment of up to three years or a fine of 10 million to 30 million won for failure to appear without a justifiable reason. In actual trials, the lawfulness of serving the summons, the unavoidability of the circumstances listed in the statement, and whether the conduct was repeated become key issues. Whether Kim's "global schedule" constitutes a justifiable reason ultimately falls within the judiciary's discretion.
Ruling party members of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee are ratcheting up pressure by mentioning the possibility of a parliamentary investigation after the hearing, which is seen as an attempt to use to the fullest any coercive powers the Assembly can exercise before handing the matter to investigative authorities. However, for references rather than witnesses, nonattendance alone rarely leads to criminal punishment due to the nature of their role.
The problem is the effectiveness of sanctions. Kim is a U.S. citizen, and when he is overseas it is difficult to effectively serve a summons or an accompaniment warrant. Even if a complaint is filed, it has no immediate coercive effect to compel attendance, and will likely amount to a "time-lag sanction," leading to an investigation only if he stays in Korea or enters the country in the future. Even if found guilty, many cases of nonattendance at the National Assembly have ended with fines.
In fact, during the 2016 hearings on the government influence-peddling scandal, business leaders including Shin Dong-bin, the Lotte Group chair, and Chung Yong-jin, the Shinsegae Group chair, who were indicted for failing to appear, were each fined between 10 million and 15 million won. Observers say that for Kim, known to have assets on the order of trillions of won, a fine alone is unlikely to exert meaningful pressure.
A legal source said, "Given the conditions of foreign nationality and overseas stay, this case could reveal the limits of the National Assembly's witness system."