Related Law to Be Amended to Toughen Regulations

The Industrial Technology Protection Committee holds a meeting on Sept. 14.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy held an Industrial Technology Protection Committee meeting on Sept. 14 and announced that it would pursue a revision of the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology for more effective technology protection.

According to the ministry’s plans, the scopes of foreigners and foreign investments subject to deliberation will be expanded for better protection of national core technologies. At present, a foreign investor-led PEF is not regulated at all in acquiring a South Korean company with a semiconductor design, process, or element technology by using a corporation founded in South Korea.

The ministry is also planning to prevent tech leak from a South Korean subsidiary under a foreign parent company in the event of the sale of the parent company. Another plan is to make it more difficult for foreign enterprises and investors to acquire South Korean companies with national core technologies by addressing mixed interpretations related to management control. At present, 30 percent equity acquisition is regarded as control acquisition in the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act whereas the minimum is 50 percent according to the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology.

At the meeting, the export of a national core technology in the automobile industry was approved along with another in the steel industry and a cross-border M&A was conditionally approved in the shipbuilding sector. In addition, the committee did not approve the export of rechargeable battery-related material, process and production technologies.

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