"Two-Year Exemption for Past Window Dressing Settlement" to be Pushed Ahead

The government and the ruling Uri Party decided to push forward a plan to exempt companies involved in past window dressing settlement from a securities class-action suit for the coming two years under the condition that past fraudulent cases are clearly distinguished from the current ones.

In lines with the plan, the government and the ruling party are poised to revise a supplementary supervision of the law on securities-related class action suits to pardon past false accountings in the extraordinary national assembly’s special session this February.

Choi Jae-cheon of the Uri party, the executive secretary at the Legislation and Judiciary Committee, said on 19th of January, “The party is reviewing a plan to clear the concepts of both past and current window-dressing settlements in supplementary provision;, and to pardon companies that cooked the books before January 30, 2004 when the bill was promulgated.

He added, “The existing law is ambiguous in describing its subjects. The law holds new official announcements responsible while pardoning ‘past false accountings,’ which is a broad and ambiguous concept. I expect that the bill will be passed this coming February as relative institutions including the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) are positive that the law’s subjects can be more specifically stated.”

The FSC is planning to draw a clear line between the concept of past false accountings and current ones in the detailed law of securities-related class action suits.

On January 18, the senior government and party officials, for their part, decided to give priority to the bill in an extraordinary national assembly in February.

The ruling party lawmakers of the Judiciary Committee of the National Assembly opposed the idea in the last December, arguing that drawing a clear line between past irregularities and current ones was not possible.

Young-Hae Choi yhchoi65@donga.com