Korea introduced the internal control system starting with financial companies and now regulates domestic companies through financial-related laws such as the Financial Corporate Governance Act and the Commercial Code, the External Audit Act, and vari...
Korea introduced the internal control system starting with financial companies and now regulates domestic companies through financial-related laws such as the Financial Corporate Governance Act and the Commercial Code, the External Audit Act, and various best practices and guidelines. Despite numerous amendments, guidelines, and policy implementation, violations such as large-scale embezzlement continue to occur. This problem is mainly related to financial companies, but it should be considered a problem related to companies everywhere, as many factors are combined in a dynamic environment.
The current Commercial Act, the External Audit Act, the Financial Corporate Governance Act, and the Financial Consumer Protection Act regulate internal control by partially reflecting overseas legislation such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. However, many issues still need to be investigated, such as the effectiveness issues arising from the difference between regulation-oriented and principle-oriented regulations, and discussions should continue on how to accept the implications to compensate for the deficiencies in Korean regulations.
Since introducing the Compliance Officer System, one of the internal control systems for financial companies, the Korean Commercial Act has recognized the need for internal control in companies other than financial companies and introduced the Compliance Support Officer System. However, unlike the Financial Corporate Governance Act, it does not stipulate sanctions for violations of the relevant provisions nor mention whether management and auditors can hold dual positions. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the compliance officer system under the Commercial Code based on the compliance officer system under the Financial Governance Act for more effective internal control. In the case of the External Audit Act, the audit agency is required to evaluate the matters reported to the shareholders' meeting after the representative evaluates the operation of the internal accounting control system. The Act requires companies to establish internal accounting control regulations and have an organization to manage and operate them. However, it does not specify the specifics of such an organization; it merely suggests matters for the internal audit department in the Corporate Governance Code and the Audit Committee Code. However, few companies have such organizations; even if they do, they have ineffective internal control systems. Therefore, this study suggests finding ways to supplement the internal control system based on the accounting and financial internal control systems in the U.S. and Japan and to ensure its effectiveness by stipulating an organization dedicated to evaluating the operation of the internal accounting control system in the External Audit Act, rather than in the best practices. The Financial Corporate Governance Act was recently amended to introduce a management duty and responsibility structure for executives. The Financial Services Commission has provided some direction by distributing an explanatory manual. However, it is difficult to apply the guidelines consistently because the business authority, fund size, and characteristics of individual companies are different. Thus, specific guidelines are needed. One way to create such guidelines would be to refer to the guidelines of domestic associations and the cases of the United States and the United Kingdom, which have been proposed to establish effective internal control standards. The Financial Consumer Protection Act also stipulates matters related to the internal control of financial companies. This law can be interpreted as focusing more on strengthening financial consumer protection than the Financial Governance Act, and compared to the Financial Governance Act, there are issues such as overlapping compliance officers, employees in charge of financial consumer protection, and internal control committees. Therefore, to reduce legal confusion and improve predictability, unifying and regulating the internal control system under the Financial Corporate Governance Act is desirable. But the Financial Consumer Protection Act aims to strengthen financial consumer protection, so it should be improved with stronger content.
The internal control system in Korea has been introduced on an ad hoc basis and is scattered in various laws such as the Commercial Code, the External Audit Act, the Financial Governance Act, and the Financial Consumer Protection Act, which causes problems of consistency. Therefore, the discussion on the internal control system should continue and hopefully will continue for effective internal control based on regulatory and legal stability, predictability, and effective internal control in line with market trends.