Officials Face Tighter Rules In Moving to Private Sector

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Officials Face Tighter Rules In Moving to Private Sector

The government's ethics commission on the civil service recently blocked the appointment of a former Financial Supervisory Service official to a post in the private sector, signaling a change in Korea's much criticized employment practices.

The commission's refusal Friday to allow Assistant Governor Lim Yong-woong of the regulatory service to move to Samsung Securities Co. as its new auditor is based on the law governing ethical conduct by civil servants. The law forbids a government official from accepting employment for a period of two years in an area closely related to the duties he was engaged in during the three years prior to leaving the public post. The law, however, provides for exceptions to be granted by the ethics commission. Officials at the regulatory commission are reported to be shaken by the development because they have come to take for granted private sector appointment after retirement from the public sector. A director general at the agency lamented at the suddenly gloomy post-retirement prospects for himself and his colleagues. "We'll have to worry about how to make a living," he said.

The ethics commission's decision to block Mr. Lim's move to Samsung was particularly unexpected because he was responsible for handling investigations of unfair business practices while in public service, a subject seemingly distant from the workings of the securities industry.

"There has never been a rejection like this before," another Financial Supervisory Service official said. "We are taking this to mean that the application of the law will be tightened from now on."

Recent high-level appointments in the banking industry appeared to disregard the law entirely. The chief executive of Kookmin Bank, Kim Sang-hoon, was formerly a deputy governor of the Financial Supervisory Service, supervising the credit management of financial firms. Kim Sang-woo, auditor of Chohung Bank was also the service's assistant governor, and the new president of the Industrial Bank of Korea was previously a deputy governor.



by Chung Sun-gu

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