“A proposed amendment to the enforcement decree of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act approved at a Cabinet meeting on Jan. 16 and came into force from Jan. 17”

The upper limit on gifts of agricultural, livestock, and fishery products has been relaxed to KRW 100,000 and the ceiling on cash gifts for weddings or funerals has been reduced to KRW 50,000, while offering gifts to duty-related public officials handling affairs concerning authorization or permission, investigation and contract, etc. is still prohibited.

□ A proposed amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act (the “Proposed Amendment”) which provides for the adjustment of the upper limit for gifts of agricultural, livestock and fishery products that may be accepted by public officials as an exception was approved at a Cabinet meeting on January 16 and came into effect on January 17.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Pak Un Jong) made an announcement that the proposed amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act was laid before and endorsed by the Cabinet meeting on January 16 to be promulgated and enforced on January 17.

Under the Proposed Amendment, the upper limit on gifts that may be offered to public officials as an exception to facilitate his/her smooth performance of duties, etc. has been raised to KRW 100,000 from the previous limit of KRW 50,000 on condition that the gifts are agricultural, livestock and fishery products or processed products thereof, with the maximum amount of cash gifts for weddings or funerals being lowered to KRW 50,000 from the previous limit of KRW 100,000.

However, the processed agricultural, livestock and fishery products should be products processed using agricultural, livestock and fishery products comprising more than 50% of raw materials or materials thereof.

On the other hand, offering marketable securities, including gift certificates, to duty-related public officials as gifts has been prohibited, except for the case where a superior public official gives such gifts to his/her subordinate public officials for encouragement or where it is permitted under laws and regulations or social rules.

□ The ACRC said that the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act has been significantly contributing to making Korea free of corruption and a majority of the public has positive views as to the implementation of the Anti-Graft Act.

However, as results of analyses conducted by research institutions and relevant ministries showed that there has been some short-term negative impact on sales of agricultural, livestock and fishery products, the ACRC has undertaken procedures necessary for the amendment to the Enforcement Decree of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act since the end of last year, after collecting various opinions and advises from all walks of life and having in-depth discussions with relevant ministries.

□ The major amendments to the Enforcement Decree of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act approved by the Cabinet are as follows:

▪ Adjustment of the upper limits on value of congratulatory/condolence money and gifts

The upper limits on value of food & drink, presents, and congratulatory or condolence money that may be offered to public officials as an exception for purposes of facilitating performance of duties or for promoting social relationships, rituals, or assistance to festivities and funerals, etc. have been adjusted to KRW 30,000, KRW 50,000, KRW 50,000, respectively from the previous limits of KRW 30,000, KRW 50,000, KRW 100,000.

The government has further consolidated its strong anti-corruption will through the Proposed Amendment by having the upper limits for food & drink and presents remain at KRW 30,000 and KRW 50,000, respectively and relaxing the ceiling on agricultural, livestock, and fishery products and processed products thereof to KRW 100,000, while lowering the limit on congratulatory or condolence money that may be offered to public officials from KRW 100,000 to KRW 50,000.

However, in the case of wreaths and condolence flowers, the value limit has been retained at KRW 100,000.

▪ Exclusion of marketable securities including gift certificates from the scope of gifts

Since marketable securities including gift certificates are similar to cash and vulnerable to corruption for they are difficult to be traced, they have been excluded from the scope of gifts that may be legally offered to duty-related public officials, etc. for purposes of facilitating performance of duties or promoting social relationships, rituals, etc.

However, ▲gift certificates offered to executives and employees of private enterprises or ordinary citizens who are not subject to the application of the Act, and ▲gift certificates purchased by public institutions to give to public officials who belong to the public institutions or gift certificates offered by superior public officials to his/her subordinate public officials for purposes of encouragement and morale boost, etc. have been allowed, regardless of the value of the certificates.

In addition, offering gift certificates worth up to KRW 1 million to public officials with no duty-relevance has been allowed, and for the rest, it has been also possible to provide gift certificates to the extent that other laws and regulations or social rules permit such provision.

▪ Adjustment of the upper limit on the amount of honoraria for outside lectures, etc. and extension of supplementary reporting period for outside lectures

Previously, in the case of public officials and executives and employees of public service-related organizations, the upper limit on the amount of honoraria was set differently depending on the rank, but under the Proposed Amendment, the different upper limits have been unified to be KRW 400,000 per hour irrespective of the rank so that individual organizations may autonomously set and operate the limit on honoraria within the range of KRW 400,000.

Furthermore, in order to address the differences in the ceilings on honoraria among national, public and private schools, general media companies and media companies of public service-related organizations, the ceiling of KRW 1 million per hour has been set to apply uniformly.

On top of it, the supplementary reporting period has been extended to fulfill the initial legislative purport of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act and to become more adapted to the reality. Previously, in case where it is difficult to know in advance the sum of honoraria, etc. upon preliminary reporting of outside lectures, etc., a public official or relevant person was required to submit a supplementary report on an outside lectures, etc. within two days from the day when the outside lecture, etc. is finished after preliminarily reporting the details of the request for the outside lectures, etc. save the sum of honoraria, etc. However, under the Proposed Amendment, a public official or relevant person is required to file a supplementary report within 5 days from the day when he/she has knowledge of the pertinent details.

The most frequent forms of violations of an obligation to report on outside lectures, etc. (according to data collected from September 28, 2016 to July 31, 2017) were delayed reporting and non-reporting (99.4%, 3,172 cases out of 3,190 cases of violations).

□ The Director General of the Anti-Corruption Bureau of the ACRC, Ahn Jun Ho said “notwithstanding the adjustment of the upper limits on congratulatory or condolence money and gifts, public officials should be aware that if offering food, congratulatory or condolence money, and gifts is directly linked with the public officials’ duties, such as authorization or permission, investigation, contract, evaluation, etc., they are prohibited from accepting any of them just as they were previously.”

Moreover, Ahn also added that “taking this amendment as an opportunity, I expect that all wasteful conflicts and disputes over the range of value limits will be resolved, with the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act taking a firm root in the daily lives of ordinary citizens as well as in the public office to realize transparent and clean Korea in the future.”