South Korean Companies Troubled By Prospect Of Securities Class Actions

As reported in The 10b-5 Daily, last December the South Korean legislature passed a bill establishing a private securities class action system. The bill was subject to a contentious debate and, with the new system scheduled to go into effect in 2005, the debate is not over yet. An article in the Korea Times states that companies are demanding a statutory exception for accounting frauds that occured prior to 2005.

Quote of note: “In a seminar on the prospects of class action lawsuits, hosted by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), Moon Tack-kon, vice chairman of the Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants, said considering the accounting features, it is difficult to clean up past accounting books a year before the 2005 introduction of the class action lawsuit. ‘Past accounting frauds tend to be reflected in the next period’s financial report,’ Moon said.”