EN Analysis
Independent, public-source analysis of how Korean law, regulation, and courts shape capital allocation, governance, and market risk.
- Korea's Directors Can't Escape a Price-Fixing Cartel — Not by Absence, Not by Its Profit
A June 2025 Korean Supreme Court cement-cartel derivative ruling closed two director exits at once — no participation is needed for oversight liability, and the cartel's profit cannot offset the bill.
- Korea's Single-Stock Leveraged-ETF Curbs: A Cash Gate Where a Structural One Was Removed
Korea removed the diversification gate on single-stock leveraged ETFs for a macro (capital-retention/FX) reason, then — once the product scaled — patched the fallout with a cash-deposit threshold rather than restore the structural gate. The sequence, not the 2x multiple, is the market-structure signal.
- Korea Toughened Market-Abuse Penalties in 2024 — but Investors Still Can't Recover
Korea built the administrative enforcement channel (2024 disgorgement penalties) but left the compensation one empty — recovery, not another substantive standard, is the missing dimension of investor trust the Value-Up thesis needs.
- Korea's Half-Built Board Reform: Independent Directors, No Compensation Committee
Korea's 2025–26 reform strengthened board independence and extended directors' duty to shareholders but never built the compensation-committee mechanism that settles pay-vs-profit conflicts elsewhere; independent directors without it are only half a fix.
- Same Raise, a Bigger Fall: What EcoPro BM's Rights Offering Reveals About Korean Market Design
The larger Korean fall is about market design — a shareholder-allocation method with a pre-fixed issue price meeting learned distrust of intra-group capital recycling — while the 2025 §382-3 reform raises the standard but the channels to enforce it remain narrow.
- Korea's §382-3 Turns the BW/EB Choice Into a Disclosure Signal
Korea's 2025 amendment to Article 382-3 added shareholders to directors' duty of loyalty; a board issuing a dilutive BW over a non-dilutive EB may now face a higher burden to explain why — a disclosure signal, not a litigation forecast.