This paper analyzes the problems and improvement measures of the foreign exchange legal system and sanctions regulations, focusing on capital transactions. In Korea, matters related to foreign exchange are basically stipulated in the 「Foreign Exchan...
This paper analyzes the problems and improvement measures of the foreign exchange legal system and sanctions regulations, focusing on capital transactions. In Korea, matters related to foreign exchange are basically stipulated in the 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Act」, but in practice, most of the substantive content is stipulated in the 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Regulations」, which is a vast and complex regulation enacted by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. As a result, compared to other financial regulatory laws, the 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Act」 has fewer articles in the law or enforcement regulations and fewer amendments submitted to the National Assembly. From the public's point of view, there are many complaints and consultations with the BOK, which is in charge of reporting capital transactions, due to the difficult and complex issues of whether a transaction is reporting is required or not, and if so, to whom and how.
Studying foreign exchange laws is challenging from a comparative legal perspective. Initially, Korea pursued liberalisation of current and capital transactions during its accession to the OECD, but due to the experience of the 1997 foreign exchange crisis, Korea has gradually and phased in the liberalisation of capital transactions, and to date, the degree of liberalisation of capital transactions is low compared to major developed countries. This is because many developed countries do not have a foreign exchange legislation system like Korea and pursue free trade of foreign exchange in principle. Therefore, this paper analyzes the demand for amendments to the 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Regulations」, which have been amended 35 times from the 18th National Assembly to the present, and evaluates the amendments from the perspectives of 'Substantive content of the capital transaction reporting system', 'Scope of delegation', and 'Criminal jurisprudence'. In addition, the paper analyzes the Bank of Korea's practical manual, the Bank of Korea's website, and lectures to provide a realistic and practical analysis of the Foreign Exchange Transaction Regulations.
As a result of examining the 35 demands for amendments to the Foreign Exchange Transaction Regulations, we found that although the current 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Act」 requires capital transactions to be either unreported or self-completed, but in reality, it is operated as an reporting subject to acceptance system, resulting in principle regulation and exceptionally permissive regulation (positive method) rather than principle permit and exceptionally regulative regulation (negative method) as originally envisioned as a measure for foreign exchange liberalization. It also confirmed that substantive matters that have a significant impact on people's rights and obligations, such as capital transactions, are specifically delegated to and regulated by the 「Foreign Exchange Transaction Regulations」, which may violate the constitutional principle of legal reservation, the principle of non-blanket delegation, and the principle of legality in criminal law. In particular, since capital transaction-related regulations under the 「Foreign Exchange Transactions Act」 are subject to penalties or fines in case of violation of obligations, the degree of reservation of law and prohibition of blanket delegation should be higher than in other administrative fields, but the current Foreign Exchange Transactions Act fails to do so. As a result, there have been a number of Supreme Court and Constitutional Court cases in which the issue of the principle of legality in criminal law and the principle of non-blanket delegation has been raised.
Therefore, this paper proposes a reorganization of the foreign exchange transaction legal system to align the legal system and sanctions regulations, focusing on capital transactions. First, from a functional regulatory perspective, the capital transaction reporting system should be operated as non-reporting and self-complete reporting for non-reportable transactions in order to be faithful to the text of the law at the level of functional regulation, and in the long run, considering the maturity of South Korea's capital market, which has transitioned from a net debtor country to a net creditor country, it is necessary to abolish the pre-reporting system for capital transactions, switch to post-reporting, and strengthen monitoring by utilizing the expertise of related organizations. Second, from the perspective of functional regulation, it is necessary to reorganize the legislative structure to clearly stipulate the substantive content of each type of capital transaction, including whether it is subject to notification and the criteria, at the level of the law or at least the enforcement decree. Since there is no regulatory agency that regulates the overall liquidity or risk of financial institutions, prudential regulation needs to be pursued on an institutional basis. This can be done through procedures such as legislative preview and public hearings in the National Assembly legislative process to enhance democratic legitimacy. Third, from the perspective of functional regulation, it is necessary to shift to a system in which the components of penalties and major regulations are clearly stipulated in laws or enforcement decrees for each type of capital transaction, and only procedural and detailed matters are regulated in subordinate regulations such as notifications, taking into account the Supreme Court's rulings.