Foreign firms remain blinded by anti-graft law

The following is the second in a series on the anti-graft law, or the Kim Young-ran Act, which could possibly change Korean society drastically. ― ED. By Lee Han-soo The government has vowed to cut red tape to attract more foreign investment and make a friendlier business environment for global companies. However, officials working for foreign companies do not think it has delivered on its promise. A case in point that shows the government's nonchalance about foreign-invested companies here is the implementation of the controversial Kim Young-ran Act, which went into effect Wednesday. Both foreign companies and foreigners working here remain perplexed by the ambiguous anti-graft law due to the lack of accessible information. The official guidelines for the anti-corruption law are published only in Korean, leaving foreign companies scratching their heads. They say the law, aimed at making Korean society more transparent, is itself too opaque. Flooded with questions from domestic businesses and entities subject to the law, the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC) — the state agency in charge of the law — is apparently too busy to keep foreign businesses and expats equally informed of the law. The Korea Times recently sent the ACRC a list of questions asking how the law would affect foreigners and foreign entities. But it fell on deaf ears. Unresponsive ACRC  The Q&A section of the ACRC website is also riddled with pages of unanswered questions. Currently, there is no route for inquiries about the law in any foreign language. The only available help is a brief introduction to the law in English on the website. However, this write-up is not known to the public — the post has been viewed only 1,624 times. The ACRC has encouraged foreign companies to provide information sessions on the law for their employees through legal entities. Despite such sessions, the experts can only give so much, as the law itself has vague clauses and holes that cannot be translated accurately. Many companies have decided to take an extremely defensive approach similar to what is being taken by Korean companies — just to avoid being trapped by the law in the initial period after its implementation. "We had an information session held by our legal team on the extent and effect of the Kim Young-ran Act," said Kang You-sun, a communications manager for JTI Korea, a Japanese tobacco company. "We would appreciate official guidelines for foreign businesses from the ACRC. But we are not putting too much hope for such guidelines to be released any time soon." Another foreign food industry official, who asked not to be named, said top managers remain baffled over the vagueness of the law. "The law itself is very good to make society cleaner," said the official. "But there are so many ambiguous articles. We have no other choice but to keep a low profile like anyone else in order not to fall victim of the law in its initial stages." Of course, many foreign companies have their own strict self-regulating guidelines. "As a foreign company, we have already had solid self-regulating guidelines and are accustomed to following them," a spokeswoman at IBM Korea said. "As the new anti-corruption law is being introduced, we have rearranged our guidelines and implemented staff training on the new rules and possible applications to our business." Still, those who work outside large businesses and cannot receive legal advice freely are completely in the dark. A foreigner working for a university here said she knows very little about how the law will affect her job. She was unaware of basic information about the law that is well known to Koreans who have easy access to the Korean law guidebook, including whether it applies to her or her university. "Who gets punished? The giver or the receiver or is it both parties together? How do I report someone who is trying to bribe me?" she asked. The lack of information about the law had her worried to an extent where she was concerned about her status here in the country. "Does it apply to D-2 and D-10 visas?" she asked. "It seems as though the government is going to use the law as a tool to deport foreigners." What frustrates her most is that she doesn't know where she can go to get answers.