(Law)Class action law: Class action lawyers' diagnosis

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1. We wish the victims of the Orient a speedy recovery. On February 20, 2014, a symposium was held at the Seoul District Bar Association to discuss the revision of the Securities Class Action Law, which is not playing a special role. Experts gathered to discuss the class action law, which has become a hot topic in recent years.

2. The conference was attended by some of Korea's leading class action law experts. Attorneys Kim Kwang-Yeon (President, Korea Law Institute), Lim Jae-Yeon (Law Firm Yulchon), Choi Seung-Jae (Vice President, Korea Law Institute), Byun Chang-Bong (Member, Korea Law Institute), Baek Seung-Yeop (Deputy Chief Judge), Kim Joo-Young (Law Firm Hannuri), Baek Joo-Sun (Participation Solidarity), Yeon Seung-Jae (Financial Supervisory Service, Financial Investment Supervisory Service), and others participated in the conference.

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From our office, Attorneys Rae Hyuk Kang, Sang Young Jeong, and Seung Wan Ham attended the meeting.

Seung Wan Ham filed the first class action lawsuit against Jinsung T.I. and others for 'false disclosure based on segmental accounting' and won the settlement on April 30, 2010. On April 30, 2010, he obtained a settlement approval decision and distributed damages to the victims in the only successful class action case.

3. We will inform you about the questions that victims have about the contents of the meeting (the meeting material is 98 pages, and we apologize for not being able to include all the contents due to the specialized content, and we have listed the parts where the East Asian crisis is mentioned and the questions that victims have about it).

Kwang-Yeon Kim : January 1, 2005 1. It has been nine years since the Securities Class Action Law came into effect, and only six cases have been filed under the law. There are many complex reasons for this lack of success, but it is likely that the inefficiencies, impracticalities, and deficiencies inherent in the Act itself have contributed to its lack of success.

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Seung Jae Choi: Over a period of about 10 years, only one of the six lawsuits was settled, one was dismissed, and two were not allowed until 2013. All of them have been appealed and are pending in the second and third courts, so it can be said that very few cases have actually addressed the issue.

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Seung Jae Choi : The need to propose legislative alternatives, and the need to think about appropriate ways to provide relief to a large number of small investors who suffer financial losses due to illegal acts such as corporate fraudulent accounting, poor auditing, and false disclosure.

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Joo Young Kim is an attorney at Hannuri Law Firm, where he is currently handling ongoing class action lawsuits. He is one of Korea's leading authorities in this field who was involved in the enactment of the Securities Class Action Law).

Considering that the Class Action Act unduly restricts the causes of action and prevents class actions from being brought for various types of collective financial consumer harm (e.g., mis-selling), and the statute of limitations in the case of unfair trade practices, it is advisable to combine time-barred claims with civil torts.

(Interpretation: even if you file a class action lawsuit, you will file a separate lawsuit for separate damages)

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Yeon Seung-Jae Lawyer: The Securities Class Action Law is limited to 'securities issued by a sovereign listed corporation', which limits the ability to file a class action lawsuit. In the case of Dongyang, there may be an issue of whether corporate notes and corporate bonds are issued in a specific monetary trust and are eligible.

Seung Wan Ham: He is the first lawyer to file a class action lawsuit and settle it, and he completed the process of distributing the damages to the victims. Class action lawsuits take too long, so I think it is more beneficial to sue individually and receive compensation than to recover damages through the class action law, which takes a long time. Also, there is a lack of legislation in the technical part, so it is difficult to carry out actual lawsuits. The courts don't seem to know much about class actions.

Deputy Chief Judge Baek Seung-Yup: The class action law is unfamiliar to the court, and there are many difficulties when the case is assigned to the civil division.

Kim Joo-Young: Class action law is a time-consuming form of litigation. Even if we improve the system, it is difficult to drastically modify the time-consuming process itself.

4. Conclusion

A. The meeting also discussed the Dongyang disaster and the Dongyang disaster class action lawsuit.

B. Class actions are currently underutilized and untested, but they are clearly beneficial to large numbers of victims and are a meaningful mechanism. However, as the symposium on reforming class actions demonstrated, there are many areas that need to be fixed and the law itself needs to be strengthened.

. The problem with class actions is that they take too long, as experts have pointed out, and in the case of Dongyang Securities, which is virtually the only solvent member of the Dongyang Group, there is a serious question of whether the company will be able to continue if a class action is granted.

La. Asian victims, it is up to you to think carefully and decide whether you want to join a class action lawsuit or the many others that are currently being filed. I believe the role of a professional is to deliver accurate information without emotion."