International Law

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...

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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...

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