JD Supra (JD Supra South Korea)

The foundation of South Korea’s cartel enforcement regime is the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (“MRFTA”), passed in 1981. The MRFTA broadly prohibits four categories of conduct: (i) unfair collaborative acts; (ii) abuses of dominance; (iii) unfair trade practices; and (iv) mergers and acquisitions that substantially lessen competition in Korea. Recent amendments, which came into force in

Trademarks are now widely used in the metaverse. Louis Vuitton, Prada, and Chanel sell their virtual collections for avatars in Roblox, and Samsung Electronics sells its home appliances and electronics in the Samsung VR Store. As offline activities are constantly being held back due to the prolonged COVID pandemic, companies are looking to expand their business models by entering the metaverse....

1. Introduction - Under the Korean Labor Standards Act (“the Act”; all Article references are to the Act unless otherwise specified), the “average wage” of an employee means the amount calculated by dividing the total amount of wages paid during the three calendar months immediately before the day grounds for calculating his or her average wages occurred by the total number of calendar days...

In the Subject Ruling, the court determined that up to 11 days of annual leave are granted to any worker who has signed a one-year fixed-term employment contract. So far, the Ministry of Employment and Labor took the position that the allowance for paid leave not taken for up to 26 days should be paid when the contract term of a one-year fixed-term worker expires. But the Subject Ruling made...

Companies with business operations in Korea should assess the risk of possible violations subject to the CIO’s jurisdiction. Gwon-lyeog-hyeong bi-li, a Korean phrase that translates as “power-type corruption” in English, refers to corruption involving senior government officials. In January 2021, the Korean government launched the Corruption Investigation Office for High-Ranking Officials (CIO

Alteogen recently announced that it has successfully completed a Phase 1 clinical trial for its Eylea® biosimilar, ALT-L9. Alteogen conducted the clinical trials in South Korea, where its headquarters are located.

World Law Group member firms recently collaborated on a Global Venture Capital Guide that covers more than 30 jurisdictions on investment approval processes, typical investment sectors and investment structures on Venture Capital deals (and more!).

We write to alert you to an important and imminent deadline. Consideration for confidential business information (CBI) for hazardous substance ingredient disclosure on safety data sheets (SDS) will require formal submission and approval in South Korea starting January 16, 2021.

After eight years of negotiations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)—covering 15 economies in the Asia-Pacific region, accounting for 30 percent of the global population, 30 percent of global GDP, and 34 percent of global investment flows—was finally signed on November 15, 2020. The RCEP is expected to enter into force in 2021.

The Republic of Korea (South Korea or ROK) had been tracking the spread of the novel coronavirus in a manner sensitive to the privacy of its citizens, but the government has now admitted that personally identifiable data is crucial to its efforts and may be kept for the long term.

Like many other countries, South Korea has experienced its share of challenges caused by the COVID-19 virus. Although Korea, as a whole, has avoided the need for lock-downs, mass business closures, and the like, the country’s economy has nonetheless suffered. In particular, the retail sector, as well as larger industries, such as the automotive sector, hospitality, airlines, etc. have been hit...

In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the government of South Korea has implemented strict measures to combat it.  The following Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) are designed to address some of the more common questions that employers with operations in South Korea currently face, including how to handle safety and health rules, travel restrictions, privacy of…

On April 15, 2020, South Korea’s next legislative election will be held to fill the 300 seats of the National Assembly. While President Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party is expected to perform well in the election, the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has sparked public anger over the president’s and the government’s response to the crisis.

As the impacts of climate change compound, emissions-free energy alternatives have gained traction around the globe. The solar energy market, for instance, is growing in many parts of the world, including India, China, Japan, Morocco, Germany, and the US. One energy alternative that has not yet gained as much attention as solar energy is hydrogen power. Still nascent, hydrogen energy has yet to...

South Korea is one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries. The East Asian state is perhaps most well-known as the home of Samsung Electronics, which has contributed significantly to the country’s domestic economic growth. Although South Korea is still struggling with a large income gap and its current trade dispute with Japan, it is now Asia’s fourth-largest economy. This has...

Matthew Leigh, an aviation finance partner in our Singapore office, led the Commercial Aviation Banking Panel at the Airline Economics Conference in Seoul at the end of March.

Local data protection representative – the South Korea version. “South Korea updated its Act on the Promotion of IT Network Use and Information Protection (Network Act) in December 2018. Starting March 19, the law will require digital communications providers who deal with South Korean data but who have no physical presence in the country to establish a domestic representative to deal with...

The beginning of 2019 brought some notable amendments to Korea’s intellectual property rights guidelines. On the trademark side, effective January 1, 2019, Korea’s Trademark Examination Guidelines were amended to include...

On December 27, 2018 the Korean National Assembly addressed workplace bullying and harassment in partial amendments to the Labor Standards Act (the “LSA”) and the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act.

On November 2018, the South Korean National Assembly considered a bill to amend the Personal Information Protection Act (“PIPA”) to give the Personal Information Protection Commission (“PIPC”) enforcement powers of its own.

South Korea is currently garnering a lot of attention in the cannabis industry following its legalization of some cannabis derivatives for medical purposes. The legalization comes as a surprise for many in the international community, particularly because South Korea has aggressively opposed cannabis — most notably by criminalizing the consumption of cannabis by South Koreans traveling abroad to...

Translation devices were provided at the 10th International Seoul Competition Forum in September, but when Korea Fair Trade Commission Chairman Sang-Jo Kim began discussing the benefits that treble damages and class actions can provide to public enforcement of antitrust laws, it was clear the chairman knew how to speak the language of American competition enforcement. The chairman expressly...

1 .What role will the government of Korea play in approving and regulating foreign direct investment? As the Korean government has significantly liberalized foreign direct investment, its role in approving and regulating foreign direct investment has become relatively limited. Unless a prospective foreign investment (i) threatens national security and public order, (ii) harms public health,...

Under the applicable laws of Korea, an employer must pay its employees severance pay in the amount of at least 30 days’ average wages for each year of the employee’s continuous service for the employer. For example, an employee who has worked at the same job for 10 years, upon leaving that employer would be entitled to at least 10 months’ wages as statutory severance pay.

The South Korean Ministry of Environment (MOE) announced on March 14, 2018, that amendments to the Act for the Registration and Evaluation of Chemicals (K-REACH) will be promulgated on March 20, 2018, and be enforced beginning January 1, 2019. As reported in our January 4, 2018, “Predictions and Outlook for U.S. Federal and International Chemical Regulatory Policy 2018,” MOE proposed changes at...

Last week, South Korea requested consultations with the United States at the WTO, launching a significant dispute that challenges both individual investigations and administrative reviews conducted by the Commerce Department, as well as broader aspects of U.S. antidumping and countervailing duty law.

South Korea announced on Friday that it will appeal to the WTO Appellate Body a panel ruling in favor of Japan’s challenge to South Korea’s ban on imports of Japanese seafood products after the Fukushima nuclear incident, which occurred in 2011.

For a few weeks every two years, the Summer and Winter Olympic Games offer brand owners and advertisers the opportunity to reach billions of people in hundreds of countries. The Summer Games in Rio 2016 reached a television audience of 3.2 billion people across the globe, while the 2014 Sochi Winter Games reached 2.1 billion and both Games also saw a digital audience of over one billion viewers....

As part of our Year in Preview series, we’ve recently covered both international cyberwar and the rise of cryptocurrency. Just before the holidays, both of these topics collided in a decidedly unpleasant manner. On December 19, the South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Youbit filed for bankruptcy, disclosing that it had just suffered a hack that made off with about one fifth of the bitcoins...

In a suit alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition, the Korean Patent Court concluded that the use of the mark “” in connection with “unmanned lodging services” used for so-called love motels with an image of a naked woman, did not infringe Outback Steakhouse’s trademark. But it did constitute unfair competition because that use harmed the good image and fame of the well-known mark