International Law

Wherein I Get Sick of Korea Law Blog

Posted on June 01, 2009
As you can tell, Korea Law Blog is pretty moribund. I’ve simply decided that my opinion on legal matters is not a matter of urgency for all people. That said, I think I might be interested in keeping a generalized blog under a different URL, one which would accommodate my opinions on cats, bacon-flavored mayonnaise, and such matters—including politics and Korean legal matters...

SsangYong Motor Situation Getting Tricky

Posted on December 26, 2008
SsangYong Motor Company (SYMC), Korea’s fifth carmaker and a holdover “zombie” company from the 1998 financial crisis, appears to be on the brink of bankruptcy, with its major shareholder Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, apparently having had enough of the company and its union, threatening to walk away from the company and to allow the company to go bankrupt...

Seoul High Court: HIV Not Justifiable Reason for Deportation

Posted on November 13, 2008
Some good news for a change: The Seoul High Court has ruled that foreign residents of Korea cannot be deported simply because of testing HIV positive, according to a report in the Law Times I noticed today. The High Court, an intermediate appellate court, affirmed a district court ruling in favor of a Chinese migrant laborer, a Mr...

Temporary Employees, Contract Employees: Two Years Only

Posted on November 10, 2008
Anyone doing business in Korea quickly becomes familiar—sometimes through painful experience—with the extreme legal protection of employees’ “right” to continued employment. Requiring “just cause” to terminate an employee under the Labor Standards Act (LSA), Korea has created a system of employment for life...

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Samsung No. 1 in US Mobile Phone Market; Korean Market Remains Basically Closed

Posted on November 09, 2008
And I think this could quite quickly become a trade irritant if anybody in Washington notices. The local papers are crowing that in the third quarter tally, Samsung Electronics achieved for the first time the number one sales position in the United States, bumping American phone maker Motorola to number two...

A Sad Story of Internet Fraud: Beware Steve Kim of Daekwang Corp.

Posted on November 07, 2008
A couple of days ago some Korea Law Blog reader found me with this common tale of woe: This is a long shot but I found you through Google (korealawblog.com) and thought I’d take a shot. To make a very long story short, I wired $3800usd to an individual who goes by the name Steve Kim...

Korean Bankruptcy Wave Starts to Mount Again

Posted on November 06, 2008
As the credit crunch starts to bite in the real economy, and Korea’s position becomes more precarious, corporate bankruptcies start to mount. Today I saw the following short report in the English Chosun Ilbo: More Companies File for Protection An increasing number of recession-hit businesses are going belly-up...

Korean Prosecution Studying Introduction of Plea-Bargaining System

Posted on November 01, 2008
Because criminal law has so much greater reach in Korea, touching on a wide variety of business conduct (such as wrongful termination, non-payment of wages, default on payment obligations, or not having the proper markings on your website, or using improperly-sized tires on the car) which might more readily be addressed by civil process in common-law countries such as the United States, we end up doing a fair bit of criminal-law counselling of business clients...

Korea All Over This Week?s Forbes (in Asia, at least)

Posted on October 27, 2008
My copy of Forbes Asia, dated October 27, 2008 turned up on Friday (no doubt having taken a detour somewhere around the office), but I only got around to looking at it over lunch. There are two good Korea-related pieces in this issue. First up, Don Kirk took a trip to North Korea to visit the site of renewed construction at Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel, the ghostly unfinished shell of a 102-storey hotel the construction of which was abandoned in 1992 after the collapse of worldwide communism left North Korea in a pinch—the markets for its odd industrial products, itchy blankets and ill-fitting suits having been lost when the Soviet Union finally gave up the ghost...

Dominance of SKY Universities Nearly Complete in Legal Profession

Posted on October 25, 2008
Anyone who’s had contact with Korean society for any period of time will be familiar with the importance of school networks, and, thus, the university entrance examination. An unholy triumvirate of three universities in the capital—Seoul National University (“S”), Korea University (“K”), and Yonsei University (“Y”)—has such a hammerlock on influence and power that teenagers will sit out a year and try again on the test rather than go to a “lesser” university, or commit suicide out of hopelessness over their lot in life without a SKY diploma...

Korean Youth Losing Grip on Traditional Morality

Posted on October 23, 2008
The Korean branch of Transparency International announced the stunning results of a survey of 1100 middle and high-school students where the students were posed questions of morality and ethics, according to the JoongAng Ilbo English edition. Shockingly, more than half of the students disapproved of excusing criminal activity by leaders who have contributed to the people’s well-being...

Blind Candidate Passes Bar Exam for First Time

Posted on October 23, 2008
The Korea Times, taking a break from its riveting 467-part series on “national branding”, caught up to other media outlets including the Law Times and the Chosun Ilbo in reporting the achievement of 27 year-old Choi Young in passing the bar examination’s two-stage written portion...

What the Won?s Collapse Means for the Korean Legal Market

Posted on October 12, 2008
Last week, the Korean won cratered against the US dollar, plumbing depths of weakness not seen since 1998. The won flirted with closing below 1400 to the dollar. The government, of course, after telling us everything’s okay, is now trying to talk the won back up to W1000 to the dollar...

Dongwon Tuna Closes on Purchase of StarKist

Posted on October 10, 2008
This one’s a little braggy, but my partner Doil Son and our fine team of associates worked so hard on this deal it merits mention on Korea Law Blog. Recently, among other events, we’ve been lucky enough to work on one of the major outbound investment deals: Hwang Mok Park PC advised Korean fishery company Dongwon Enterprise Co...

Shutdown Allowances Under Korean Law

Posted on October 09, 2008
This morning a client got in touch with what I fear may be an all-too-common issue: Headquarters wants all offices worldwide—including the client’s Korea branch office—to close up for a month, with staff on unpaid leave, as a cost-containment measure in response to the credit crunch...

Major Overhaul of Korea?s Civil Code Forthcoming From 2009

Posted on October 08, 2008
For the first time since the Korean Civil Code was last overhauled in 1958, the basic statute of Korean laws will be overhauled completely from 2009-2012, reported the Law Times yesterday. The scholarly effort will be similar to the epochal Restatements of the Law undertaken by the American Law Institute, in that the forthcoming changes to the Korean Civil Code will aim to reduce to clear, concise language principles of law already developed through case precedents since 1958 but not codified into law...

Computer Security As Fraud Preventative

Posted on September 27, 2008
Korea’s government has finally woken up to e-mail’s role in official communications, and banned government employees from the use of free web-based e-mail services for official duties, reports the Korea Times. Additionally, the government is instituting more stringent data-security practices—controlling access to files on government servers, limiting the use of USB flash-memory sticks, and blocking connections to web-based file-exchange services like WebHard (http://www...

Why Ambulance Chasing Doesn?t Pay in Korea

Posted on September 24, 2008
This short bit in the Korea Times piqued my interest, as it illustrates why English-speaking lawyers aren’t standing by to right every wrong against Korea’s long-suffering foreign teachers of English: Doctor Blames for Suicide Stemming from Wrong Diagnosis A hospital is partially responsible for a patient’s suicide if the suicide was committed after a doctor’s wrong diagnosis, according to a court ruling Tuesday...

Americans Overseas: Register and Vote

Posted on September 19, 2008
[This entry will stay top of the page through Nov. 4.] We all know this election is important. Every election for the Presidency is an important one, but perhaps this November is especially crucial. As an American citizen overseas, you still have the right—and moral obligation—to vote for the candidates of your choice...

Some Lawyers Struggling to Make a Living

Posted on August 31, 2008
The execrable Korea Times reports a polarizing legal community, where solo and small-firm lawyers struggle to survive and others—those in larger law firms—prosper. In other words, a real marketplace, with winners and losers. The current Korean legal market is a far cry from the not-too-distant past, when simply passing the bar exam was an achievement which more or less guaranteed a lifetime of prosperity and prestige...

Top 12 Search Terms for August 2008

Posted on August 26, 2008
Reading the referrer logs and web statistics for search terms gives one a keen insight into what concerns web surfers. Knowing what brought visitors to the site allows a blogger to tailor the content to what’s been demonstrated to be in demand. Here’s the top 12 searches that brought visitors to Korea Law Blog so far this month: 1...

Seoul?s Growing Law Firms Finding ?No Room at the Inn?

Posted on August 25, 2008
Trumpeting Large Law Firms “One Family Under Three Roofs”, the Law Times reported Thursday on a phenomenon of relevance to all law firms in Seoul, including the foreign law firms supposedly salivating just outside the gates: Seoul’s office buildings are bursting at the seams, and law firms are finding it impossible to locate places with enough space to accommodate their growing numbers...

More Advice for English Teachers on Employment Relations at Korean Hagwon

Posted on August 24, 2008
This weekend I got a nice message from a Korea Law Blog reader thanking me for the Korea employment law FAQ in the sidebar. It’s a popular download, with about 1000 visitors having taken the time to download over the last year. The reader, a foreign teacher of English about to sign a contract and come over to Korea to teach, asked whether it would be worthwhile to have a lawyer look over the contract before executing it...

Understanding Agency, Distribution and Franchise Regulation in Korea

Posted on August 11, 2008
This comes up from time to time in our practice, but infrequently enough (maybe once a year for me, as I do inbound FDI/M&A work and employment law mostly) that when a colleague in Europe asked if we had a throwaway overview memorandum to give, I had to confess that no, we did not...

Oops! They Did It Again

Posted on July 29, 2008
Law firm mergers seem to be coming on a daily basis, or at least as often as the Law Times turns up on my desk (twice weekly). This time it’s Kim Chang & Lee ("Korea’s oldest law firm") and Kim & Company who are merging to form a 40-something mid-sized firm, also with ambition to double its mass in the next two years...

That?s Right: When You?re in a Hole, Keep Digging

Posted on July 28, 2008
Business-friendly Pres. Lee Myung-bak has surrendered to the street protestors, and it looks like they’ll get their wish for autarky. What makes me say this? Foreign investment interest in Korea has all but evaporated, and your international reputation for rule of law has been made a joke by your continued legal harassment of Lone Star Funds? Trying to convince foreign investors with the Big Lie that everything’s okay, and Korea welcomes foreign capital to its “level playing field”? Although I am sure this will get me in trouble with Korea Law Blog reader H...

Law Firms? Urge to Merge Continues

Posted on July 27, 2008
It’s been a hot summer for the legal market, with firms merging and combining all over. On Friday I noticed the trade newspaper Law Times reporting that Korean law firms continue seeking critical mass: A three-way merger between Hanbit Law Group, Saegil Patent & Law Firm, and Law Offices of Ha-Yeon Cha, which brings into being a new, 46-member mid-sized firm (with just two foreign legal consultants, so far as I can see, so job-hunters, hint hint...

Working as a Lawyer in Pyongyang

Posted on July 27, 2008
I must admit: Part of me hungers for the adventure aspect of being out on a barren frontier, where life is desolate and hard. For this reason, I’ve always been more attracted to by the prospect of a smelly-sock train ride across Mongolia, Manchuria, Siberia, Crapistan or Trashcanistan than hitting the five-star resorts of Bali or Singapore...

Leftists? Fakery Highlights Importance of Translations and ?Official Language?

Posted on July 26, 2008
A frequently-asked question put to me from time to time is Are we required to make this contract in the Korean language? The answer to this question, in almost all cases, is NO. As a general rule, Korean statutes and regulations are completely silent on the question of official language, seemingly because whoever’s drafting the statutes presumes that all parties to a transaction are Koreans capable of using the local language...

Korea?s Own Coming Mortgage Crisis

Posted on July 20, 2008
While I don’t usually rely on the Korea Times as a source of information, because it’s crappy and there is a self-censorship going on over there, it is in English and that means a link to the story doesn’t require ol’ Brendon to undertake a translation job in order to write about something on this blog...

More Law-Firm Merger Talk

Posted on July 15, 2008
Yes, Dad—I’m still alive. Just been busy. (And disgusted, a bit.) Seoul’s law-firm merger rumor mill is in high gear, putting one of the “Big Four” law firms at which I used to work in talks with mid-sized Korean law firm KCL (formerly Kim, Choi, and Lim) about bringing the 61 KCL professionals onboard, cementing (only for the moment, I would presume, as this would trigger a cascade effect) the acquiring firm’s position as “Number 2” after Kim & Chang with close to 300 professionals...

Two More Korean Law Firms Merge

Posted on June 20, 2008
On the heels of last month’s merger between Horizon Law Group and Jisung Law Group, today I get news that two more mid-sized Korean law firms have decided their hope for survival and prosperity in the marketplace lies in achieving greater mass. DeRyook International Law Firm and AJU International Law Group have announced their own mergers as well...

Seoul Housing Bubble Deflating: Hope For Soft Landing

Posted on June 15, 2008
It looks as if the bubble is popping, or at least deflating somewhat, in the Seoul housing market. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Prices are definitely too high, but of course as a homeowner (thankfully, not a highly-leveraged homeowner) I’d rather the prices remained steady...

Korea Left Out of Condi?s List of American Allies in Pacific

Posted on June 10, 2008
American media may have missed it, but you can bet your sweet bippy the Korean press—particularly the conservative press like the Chosun Ilbo—noticed the subtle way Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the Republic of Korea as somewhat less of an ally to the United States than Asia-Pacific stalwarts Japan and Australia: U...

Angry Car Critic Reads Kia the Riot Act

Posted on June 03, 2008
Apparently not everyone is as pleased with their consumer experience as I am. Just got finished reading UK motor critic Jeremy Clarkson (Top Gear)’s scathing review of the Kia Sedona. I wonder if the guy has a drinking problem or something. I got halfway through the meandering article before coming to anything to do with the Sedona...

A Decent Economy Class Experience on Korean Air?Go Figure

Posted on June 02, 2008
On this latest trip to San Francisco, since I?m working against my own marketing-expense budget, I booked economy class and used accrued frequent-flyer mileage (30,000) to upgrade to business (on Korean Air, ?Prestige Class?) for the SEL-SFO leg. Coming back today, I flew economy because it?s ?high season? in the States and they wanted 45,000 miles for the upgrade...

Use-It-Or-Lose-It Annual Leave in Korea

Posted on May 12, 2008
A common question I get from time to time is whether employee leave not used during the year may be forfeited. Prior to the September 2002 Amendment of the Labor Standards Act introducing the 40-hour workweek, the answer had been “no”. Supreme Court precedents overturned the language of the LSA then in effect concerning leave, because there were so many instances where employers had interfered with the employee’s right to use leave...

Somehow I Don?t Think This is Going to Help

Posted on May 10, 2008
Against the backdrop of plummeting foreign investment and the flight of Korean capital to better investment destinations, Strategy and Finance Vice Minister Choi Joong-kyung told the Korea Times that Pres. Lee Myung-bak’s “business-friendly” face doesn’t necessarily mean that Korea’s getting over its xenophobic attitude toward foreign investment: “A friendly investor should walk hand in hand with the Korean economy for win-win results, but private equities are not such investors,” he added, suggesting that foreign PEFs are not in the friendly investors’ zone...

Book Early to Avoid Disappointment

Posted on May 08, 2008
Not being able to enroll your kids in an English-speaking school is a worry for every parent, but this story in the JoongAng Ilbo’s English edition made me smile: Korea’s notorious lack of convenient services for foreigners has claimed another...

Korea Gets Serious About Child Support Order Enforcement

Posted on May 08, 2008
It’s not business law, but I think this is an interesting tidbit. Today’s Law Times, Korea’s legal-industry newspaper, carries an article headlined “Child Support Orders Ineffective”—over a story telling us, well, how ineffective are the child-support orders issued by the Korean court in divorce cases...

Foreign Investment in Korea Continues to Plummet

Posted on May 06, 2008
The Korea Times has a must-read article describing how foreign investors have had enough of Korean double-talk on foreign-investment friendliness and are withdrawing their investments from Korea. Asia’s most widely-quoted economist Andy Xie offers the following insight why: “Korea has become less friendly to foreign investment in the past five years as it recovered from the financial crisis,” Andy Xie, an analyst of the Shenzen Development Bank (SDB) in China, who is the former Morgan Stanley chief economist overseeing the Korean economy and financial markets, told The Korea Times...

Korea, Land of 10,000 Lawyers

Posted on April 30, 2008
It’s good to have friends who know what I like. While I’ve been swamped today (for three weeks running, really, since I foolishly took a few days to attend a short conference in China) working on a securities-law matter, Korea Law Blog readers have been forwarding interesting law-related tidbits...

More Notice of South Korea?s Jury Experiment

Posted on April 28, 2008
A little bird tipped me to a short piece in the National Law Journal by University of Dayton law professor Thaddeus Hoffmeister, concerning the Republic of Korea’s tentative first steps toward trial by jury. NLJ is one of the most widely-read professional publications for the legal industry, which means that most of the American legal profession (at least its ruling class of corporate lawyers) now knows about Korea’s jury-trial innovations...

Why No Scientology Center in Korea?

Posted on April 28, 2008
I am not a member of the Church of Scientology, nor do I believe I ever will be interested in joining simply because of Tom Cruise’s membership. (I’m still angry he married Katie Holmes, a project I had been reserving to myself. Plus, they’re crazy...

Balanced Regional Development Proving A Real Menace to Economy

Posted on April 28, 2008
There are 19,948 unsold apartments now on the market (18,770 of which are in provincial areas outside Seoul), according to this Dong-A Ilbo story I noticed over the weekend. (You may be noticing how the residential real estate bubble is a hot issue in my mind...

Average Seoul Apartment Price Exceeds W500 million

Posted on April 20, 2008
Paging Doctor Housing Bubble! Is Dr. Bubble in the house? Thanks to the Roh housing policy, the average price of 900 square-foot Seoul apartments (pitifully small, hardly large enough for Battlestar Galactica’s Rekha Sharma to lounge around in nude) now exceeds W500 million, less than two years after the price for similar apartments passed the W400 million level, the Maekyung Ilbo reports today: 30-pyong Seoul Apartments Pass W500 Million The average price of a 30-pyong apartment in Seoul has surpassed W500,000,000...

China Law Blog on How to Maintain Control of Korean Joint Venture

Posted on April 19, 2008
Okay, not really. But Seattle-based Harris & Moure, through its excellent China Law Blog, once again offers another one of those warnings that could be applicable to Korea after a find-and-replace job: Chinese Joint Ventures—The Information The Chinese Government Does Not Want You to Know...

Battlestar Galactica! Holy Cow It?s Good

Posted on April 19, 2008
Via the magic of the Internet, I’m able to see Battlestar Galactica almost immediately after it airs in the United States. Holy cow, this is a good show. After watching the emergence of the formerly-nondescript background character Tory Foster in the last two Galactica episodes, I’m really curious to know how many visitors will find Korea Law Blog via the keyword search “Rekha Sharma nude”...

Franchise Disclosure Statement Registration Starts in August

Posted on April 18, 2008
Last year the Franchise Act was amended, introducing, among other things, an obligation for franchisors to register their disclosure statements with the Korea Fair Trade Commission, which would make the disclosure publicly available. Previously, although there was a recommended form promulgated for use by franchisors, its use was not mandatory...

Korea?s Odd Price Differentials: What, Me Worry?

Posted on April 17, 2008
So I spent the last few days in Beijing, where I was scheduled to speak at the American Bar Association International Labor Committee’s mid-year meeting. Alas, events conspired to make my participation less than I’d hoped; one of the bad things about travelling to conferences in the same or similar time zone to where you normally work is that the same people who’d normally be hectoring you at the office can still find you...

English Teachers in Korea: Where To Go For Legal Help

Posted on April 09, 2008
It’s no secret within the Korea blogosphere that your Uncle B, a corporate lawyer, doesn’t welcome phone calls and inquiries from English teachers. It’s not because I am a cold-hearted bastard—it’s because a top Korean commercial law firm serving Fortune 500 clients is not really the right tool for the job...

?I Don?t Care What You Charge; Whatever It Is, It?s 15% Too Much?

Posted on April 08, 2008
Today we got an inquiry (through a referral from their New York lawyers, actually) from one of the peculiar breed of corporate clients who has demanded a 15% across-the-board discount. Problem is, this new client hasn’t asked for our normal fee structure...

Home Prices Actually Sink in Songpa! Let?s Buy Two

Posted on April 05, 2008
A Korea Law Blog reader forwarded a story from the JoongAng Ilbo’s English edition about the super bargains coming available in the Songpa-gu area, one of the burgeoning eastern fringe regions of the Seocho-Kangnam-Songpa-Seongnam bulge belt preferred by affluent or striving residents of Seoul...

Save 20% on Hyundai Genesis: Ship It Back From America

Posted on April 04, 2008
On Wednesday I had a long-standing client and friend come into town for a meeting, and we met up at the Hyatt Hotel for sodas in the lobby before he had to shuffle off to the airport. Before meeting my friend, I noticed that Hyundai Motor was holding a US dealership conference in the bowels of the hotel...

In Which I Advise the Minister of Construction

Posted on March 25, 2008
The Dong-A Ilbo English edition today reports the Lee Myung-bak government’s response to the housing crisis: Do what Korea Law Blog recommends. In my blog entries on this topic, I’ve urged the government to deregulate land-use restrictions to increase the supply of developable land: The government decided to lift regulations on farmlands and mountain lands in suburban areas to expand the ratio of the urban land to the entire territory from 6...

Why You Can?t Buy Anything On-Line in Korea, Mr. Foreigner

Posted on March 25, 2008
Feeling frisky after my success fixing the housing policy problem, I contributed this piece to my firm’s “Law Talk” series in the Korea Herald today. I’m not completely happy with the final piece, after the “editorial process”, nor the headline supplied by editors—which I think misuses the word “crimp”—but within the 550-word limit allowed by the paper, it’s not all that bad...

Global Warming Has Stopped?

Posted on March 23, 2008
So says this article in The Australian. But if our evil industrialized lifestyle, and carbon emissions, was solely responsible for global warming, and emissions are up—wouldn’t the warming trend have continued past 1998? The Australian columnist Christopher Pearson reported on an interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs in which it was discussed how new satellite data doesn’t fit the global-warming orthodox opinion...

Korea?s Own ?Sub-Prime? Housing Crash in Sight?

Posted on March 23, 2008
A faithful reader forwards this story of ominous portent—construction companies are going bankrupt, while unsold apartments are mounting even in Seoul (the unsold inventory leaped 50% in a month!) because buyers are taking a wait-and-see attitude toward purchase: Non-Banks Suffer From Housing Market Slump Korea Times, March 24, 2008 The ongoing housing market slump could hit construction firms and the non-banking financial sector hard, creating a crisis that may resemble the unfolding sub-prime mortgage debacle in the U...

?Easing Environmental Regulations? Not A Surrender to Pollution

Posted on March 22, 2008
I saw an interesting piece in the Dong-A Ilbo and dug up the English edition. Pres. Lee Myung-bak’s “business-friendly” government is easing environmental regulations to allow expansion of factories near water sources. This is part of a massive wave of deregulation and rationalization of government activity forecast to take place under LMB...

National Pension Service Puts Muscle Into Corporate Governance Reform (and Fails)

Posted on March 16, 2008
Day by day, it begins to look like President Lee Myung-bak, product of Korea Inc., and his band of advisors may be those bold reformers Korea needs to make the move to the next level of prosperity. Last week the JoongAng Ilbo English edition reported that the National Pension Service, a major institutional investor, declared its intention to vote its shares against convict CEOs of two major conglomerates...

David Mamet Comes Around

Posted on March 12, 2008
As if this wasn’t more-or-less obvious to anyone watching The Unit the past three seasons (it’s on cable here in Seoul now too), playwright/showrunner David Mamet has recovered from his persistent vegetative state.

It?s a Housing Crash All Right

Posted on March 12, 2008
But not the type that will restore affordability to the expensive Korean housing market. As it turns out, former President Roh Moo Hyun taking economic advice from Karl Marx may not have helped the housing situation in Seoul after all: Apartment Supply on Sharp Decline Maeil Kyungjae (English edition) 11 Mar 2008 Aftereffects of the apartment price cap are being witnessed...

Dos Tacos Means Seoul Getting More Livable

Posted on March 09, 2008
I still remember when getting up to the McDonald’s in Apgujeong-dong was big news to us poor swabs stuck in Pyeongtaek. The JoongAng Daily has run a review of a Mexican restaurant—not exactly a new restaurant, but hey—that should be on the list of any expat resident of Seoul: Dos Tacos at Kangnam Station (between Kangnam Station Exit 6 and the Kyobo Building one looooong block to the north)...

Requiem for Hamsterdam: The Wire Producers on America?s Drug War

Posted on March 09, 2008
HBO’s The Wire is one of those only-on-cable dramas that make pay television compelling and the metastasizing spread of CSI on free-to-air TV all that more depressing. Violent and foulmouthed, yet incredibly smart, The Wire chronicles crime—mostly the drug war—in the bleak collapsed cityscape of Baltimore...

Remember Bill Kapoun: Enrollment for National Medical Insurance Program

Posted on March 08, 2008
Last week, news that Bill Kapoun, a handsome young English teacher, and his girlfriend had been burned in a house fire swept the expat community here in Seoul. A lot of people—including my family—opened up their purses to donate funds for his staggering medical expenses, as Bill Kapoun was not enrolled in Korea’s National Medical Insurance Program...

More Property Craziness Under MBnomics

Posted on March 05, 2008
Since the election of Lee Myung-bak, property prices have firmed or increased a little on the hope that punitive tax policies of the Roh administration will be repealed (part of the “MBnomics” he’s promising). Now a complex coming onto the market in the Ttukseom district—which abuts the “Seoul Forest” park—hopes to test the willingness of the market to absorb luxury apartments north of the Han River (English Dong-A Ilbo today)...

Weather Channel Founder Calls for Al Gore to be Jailed

Posted on March 05, 2008
Okay, not really. But Weather Channel John Coleman is calling for Al Gore and the other climate hucksters to be dragged into court to prove their “science” in an actual head-to-head contest instead of shouting down heretics. But I would still like to see Al Gore jailed...

Korea National Pension Becomes Eat-and-Run ?Vulture? Investor

Posted on March 05, 2008
Yesterday the National Pension Service (NPS)—manager of Korea’s Social Security-like retirement pension plan—announced its intention to invest $300 million in some private-equity funds operated by “TPG”, or Texas Pacific Group...

Happy Taxpayers Day

Posted on March 03, 2008
Here’s something you probably didn’t know: Today is Taxpayers’ Day in Korea. I’m not sure what kind of celebrations are held to mark the occasion of Taxpayers’ Day, but it’s good to know the government is thinking of us...

Mess with the Bull, Get the Horns, Son!

Posted on March 01, 2008
Found on the net yesterday, this little gem from a certain self-satisfied ersatz foreign “Professor of Constitutional Law” at some Korean university who’s been sniffing his own farts too long: A developer recently contacted me concerning a dispute with a supplier of building materials...

Hurray! LMB?s Labor Minister Suggests Rational Reforms

Posted on February 29, 2008
Apparently having survived his background-check scare, President Lee Myung-bak’s new Minister of Labor Lee Young-Hee declared his intention for a new labor-management relations paradigm: Management will no longer be denied by the state the benefit of the protection of law...

Favorite Story of the Week

Posted on February 26, 2008
Oops: Labor Minister Nominee Fabricated Career (Korea Times). What? They’re checking references now?!

900 Sq. Ft. Korean Apartment Construction Cost $150K

Posted on February 26, 2008
More real estate and housing policy-related news caught my eye today. From the Maeil Kyungjae (sorry no link because this paper has joined the execrable Korea Herald in the movement against deep-linking): 85? Apartment Basic Construction Cost to Rise 3...

Bad News for Flashers and Sex Pests and Foreign Investors

Posted on February 21, 2008
Ripoff Korea makes it much more expensive to be a “Burberry Man” (the Koreanism for a flasher, based on the best-known brand of trenchcoat here) in Seoul—up to 52% more expensive than the appalling cost in Tokyo. The Maeil Business reports on the shocking cost of living in Korea: Maeil Business Newspaper and KOTRA (Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency) jointly investigated commodity prices in Seoul, New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Beijing and Hong Kong in January to discover a women?s trench coat from a major luxury brand, Burberry, to be most expensive in Seoul at 1...

Joint Venturing Tips: ?Veto? Rights for One-Third Shareholders

Posted on February 18, 2008
Today a question came in from a client apparently intending to form a joint venture in Korea—the question concerned what kind of “veto” rights a shareholder would have under Korean law if he held 1/3 of the voting rights in a Korean corporation...

China Law Blog on How to Learn Korean Legal Vocabulary

Posted on February 17, 2008
Dan Harris’ China Law Blog has another wise bit of advice to students of foreign laws—although Dan relates his partner Steve Dickinson’s view on how to learn Chinese law, the advice is (once again!) completely applicable to anyone studying Korean laws...

Super Staph Infection Free with One-Third of Fish at Large Korean Supermarkets!

Posted on February 17, 2008
Korea Beat today translates a Yonhap News report that a random check of fish on sale at selected large supermarkets in Seoul found almost one-third (16 of 50 samples) infected with Staphlococcus Aureus, or “Golden Staph”: The Korean Food and Drug Administration (????????) announced on the 14th that it took 50 samples of fish and squid seasonings from four major supermarkets in January, finding 16 cases of Staphylococcus aureus (???????), also known as ?Golden Staph?...

Citizens Reject Charity for Namdaemun Restoration, Demand Government Money

Posted on February 14, 2008
Sometimes I really have to wonder about the Korean public’s understanding of how exactly government works. Check out this flap reported in the JoongAng Daily concerning who’s going to pay for the loss of National Treasure No. 1, the Sungnyemun (Namdaemun) gate—which was torched over the weekend by a disgruntled citizen: After an alleged arsonist destroyed Namdaemun, the 610-year-old southern gate of Seoul on Sunday night, President-elect Lee Myung-bak suggested the next day that the gate?s restoration be funded by citizens? donations...

More on Land-Use Regulation and Housing Prices, Plus News From Seattle

Posted on February 14, 2008
On the Marmot’s Hole today guest blogger R. Elgin noted a recent press report about another theme park to be constructed near Seoul. A commenter “frederick” opined rather predictably: This is sickening. Land is sparse in Korea. Korea doesn?t need any more theme parks that will only use up valuable land space...

Flash! Non-Compete Covenant May Require Compensation

Posted on February 13, 2008
In late January the Seoul District Court issued a judgment holding for the first time that “reasonable compensation” must be made to employees subject to a non-compete covenant if the employees have not had access to “trade secrets” of the employer...

First Korean ?Jury Trial? Concludes

Posted on February 13, 2008
Law.com reported today that Korea’s first-ever criminal trial held with the participation of a panel of citizens concluded Tuesday in Taegu with a guilty verdict for a 27 year-old man who broke into the apartment of a 70 year-old lady to rob her, injuring the old woman in the process...

Tragedy of Bob Costas? Youthful Looks

Posted on February 11, 2008
I am going to start posting comments on things that interest me—Korean legal topics and perspectives will probably remain the dominant theme here, but the legal world doesn’t produce Earth-shaking news every day. Over the weekend I caught the latest episode of HBO’s political talk show Real Time with Bill Maher...

Intense Competition for Lawyers Seeking Employment at KFTC

Posted on February 09, 2008
Since I know at least one of the lawyers who’ve applied for these posts, this report in the Korea Times seems relevant. Korean-licensed lawyers are taking greater interest in working for the Korea Fair Trade Commission, which has for some time been recruiting small numbers of attorneys to join its staff: As many as 109 lawyers have applied for five posts at the Fair Trade Commission, a government regulator on fair trade of businesses, making the competition ratio 22:1, the commission said [February 9]...

Paul Hastings on Korean Legal Market Opening

Posted on February 06, 2008
With the Korean legal market opening a Done Deal For Next Year?, as it has been since I started following the issue in 1991, I thought I’d post this Korea Herald article from November 2007 which I clipped and saved (Korea Herald makes it really hard to directly link to their content)...

Another Step Toward Legal Market Opening

Posted on February 05, 2008
The Foreign Legal Consulants’ Act cleared a cabinet meeting today, reports the Korea Times. Next stop is submission to the National Assembly for an up-or-down vote. According to the proposed timetable, initial market opening will take place “from 2009”—which often means Jan...

United States? Hands Tied by Unfair SOFA

Posted on January 13, 2008
The Korea Times reports that in August Korean aircrews and planes will be training at Nellis AFB, Nevada for the first time. As for me, I am halfway hoping that one of the Korean military members gets into a traffic accident, or even flips out and commits some sort of crime...

Public or Official Holidays in Korea

Posted on January 04, 2008
Today I received in the management-side employment lawyer mailbag a client inquiry about public holidays in Korea—a question which comes in from time to time from clients establishing or revising their Work Rules. On top of the 15 (or more depending on seniority) days of annual leave entitlement, how many public holidays are employers required to observe? How much down time does a Korean employee get, besides the usual weekend? Other than Labor Day (May Day), there are in fact no official public holidays mandatory on Korean employers...

Housing Bubble: Home Supply Down 30% in 2008

Posted on December 22, 2007
The Maeil Kyungjae’s English edition reports next year’s housing supply will be down 30% over 2007, thanks to Roh Moo Hyun’s housing policies which include punitive taxes on homeowners, and price controls on new units: Housing supplies are expected to decrease 30 percent next year compared to this year...

LMB?s Canal Project: Full Speed Ahead, 2011 Completion

Posted on December 22, 2007
Yes, I didn’t post during the Presidential campaign. Korea has rather stiff election rules that ban on-line comment, even from thinly-read foreign bloggers. Rather than waste my time with the prosecutors (Think they have better things to do? Think again) I sat out the Korean election cycle...

Oops

Posted on December 18, 2007
I got a message from a young lawyer seeking guidance on his career here in Seoul today. And then I deleted the message, stupidly, talking to my Dad on the phone about his impending heart surgery. If you wrote me about your career, send that message again...

FT: I-Banks Abandoning Hong Kong Hubs?Korea to Gain?

Posted on December 06, 2007
Of course not! I was tantalized by the headline, and the possibility that the Korean government’s financial hub plan was finally going to show some results. But it turns out that the banks are merely decamping to a cheaper part of Hong Kong—namely, West Kowloon, where the rents are 1/4 what they are in Central...

KFTC: Why Does Hyundai Sonata Cost 56% More in Korea?

Posted on December 04, 2007
The English edition of the Chosun Ilbo reports noises from the Korea Fair Trade Commission over suspicious pricing of Hyundai and Kia automobiles (for the uninitiated these two are under common ownership, like Ford and Lincoln-Mercury). Apparently KFTC is investigating why the Sonata NF costs W16 million (about US$17,300) when sold to Americans, but W25 million (US$27,000) here in Korea...

Non-Tariff Trade Barriers in Action: Keeping Budget Airlines Out of Korea

Posted on December 03, 2007
The Ministry of Construction and Transportation (MOCT) put the kibosh last week on Korean Air’s defensive plan to launch Air Korea, a low-cost carrier for international flights. This probably portends difficulty for the City of Incheon’s plan to launch an internationally-focused low cost carrier, Incheon Tiger Air, in collaboration with Singapore-based budget carrier Tiger Airways...

Concerned Korean Scientists Beat Back Mandatory Homosexuality and Multi-Culti B.S.

Posted on November 18, 2007
UPDATE 11/20 11:00 A.M.: All fun aside, Korea’s first Anti-Discrimination Act is an important step toward a fairer society that can include not only all persons of Korean descent who are heterosexual (or closeted) and in good health, but also gay and lesbian Koreans, foreigners, immigrants, and the disabled...

More Property Fallout: Kwangju Regional Construction Group Foundering

Posted on November 16, 2007
Another regional construction-based conglomerate is teetering on the edge. The JoongAng Ilbo’s English edition chalks it up to the traditional Korean cocktail of tax evasion and corporate embezzlement, but your Uncle B sees things a little differently...

Korean Supreme Court Rejects Admissibility of Evidence Obtained Illegally

Posted on November 16, 2007
A real bombshell in the papers today and a slap in the face of Korea’s all-powerful public prosecution. The Supreme Court has finally issued a definitive ruling concerning the admissibility of evidence obtained by the prosecution “illegally”, or outside the boundaries of limited authority granted to the prosecution under a search warrant...

Builders Having Trouble Moving Apartments in Seoul

Posted on November 11, 2007
...now also in the crappier parts of the city, not just Kangnam. And affordability appears to be one of the factors (along with, I would guess, buyers’ uncertainty over whether we’re at the top of the market and whether the government is going to continue to meddle in the market)...

Ex Post Taxo: Korean Government Renegs on Tax Advice

Posted on November 08, 2007
Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) today found out about Korea’s regrettable preference for “flexibility” in re-interpreting laws. The Seoul Administrative Court, ruling on GIC’s appeal against a tax assessment by the Gangnam District Office for deemed acquisition tax in GIC’s December 2004 acquisition of Star Tower, upheld the district’s April 2007 tax grab: [GIC] used two paper companies to complete the transaction, with neither holding fully 51 percent of the property...

KFTC Fines 10 Pharmas, Refers Criminal Charges

Posted on November 04, 2007
Before the weekend, the Korea Times reported another heavy sanction imposed by Korea’s newly-energetic Fair Trade Commission: The country?s corporate watchdog said Thursday that it has imposed a combined 19.9 billion won ($22 million) in fines on 10 local pharmaceutical companies for unfair trading practices, including the provision of illegal rebates to hospitals and wholesalers...

Private Equity and Chicken Entrepreneurs Investing in Pyongyang

Posted on November 02, 2007
Emerging-markets asset management company Fabien Pictet and Partners is reported to be sniffing around Pyongyang for investment opportunities, and to intend a North Korea private equity fund. There are a few other North Korea funds in the raising, but finding the opportunities may be difficult: “It would be very difficult to put more than $50 million directly into North Korea,” said [Fabien Pictet CEO Richard] Yarlott, 47, who helps manage $750 million of bonds and equities...