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Compliance Corner: OECD, South Korea

Editorial Staff

21 December 2018

A club of industrialised nations has warned South Korea to enforce its foreign bribery laws more rigorously, warning that enforcement has weakened since 2011.

The Paris-based said that the enforcement rate since 2011 does not match the “significant” level of exports and outward investment by South Korean companies in countries and sectors where there is a high corruption risk.

“Korea needs to address key elements of its legislative framework, in particular a longstanding recommendation to increase the level of sanctions for foreign bribery, notably for companies, and ensure that application of its foreign bribery law is not subject to a restrictive interpretation by its law enforcement and judiciary,” the group said.

The 44-country OECD Working Group on Bribery recently finished its Phase 4 evaluation of Korea's implementation of the Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials and related instruments.