Still wrestling with K-regulations

Suh Kyoung-ho

The author is an editorial writer of the JoongAng Ilbo.

There still are a myriad of businesses common in other countries but illegal in Korea. Most of them cannot do business here because the mainstream pipeline groups won’t accept digital entries. The selfishness of business organizations has become an eyesore. The government sitting on the fence also makes matters worse.

The conflict between LawTalk, an app-based legal service, and the Korean Bar Association (KBA) has been drawn out for more than eight years. The Ministry of Justice on July 20 reviewed whether the KBA’s censures on its member lawyers for joining the legal service on the platform are justifiable. But the ministry could not reach a conclusion. The prosecution, the Constitutional Court, and the Fair Trade Commission all sided with the app service.

Still, the ministry cannot make up its mind. Over the years, the platform lost half of its member lawyers and had to let half of its staff go. The so-called “legal tech,” which the Justice Ministry defined as a “trend of the times,” is on the brink of collapse before it blossomed.

The KBA argues that the app favors lawyers who pay higher ad fees to the legal-service platform. But consumer convenience should be the guidance. Seven out of 10 civil lawsuits are being filed without a lawyer. LawTalk can increase accessibility to legal service for general public. Across the world, over 7,000 legal tech platforms are in service. There are seven who are unicorns with a valuation of $1 billion or more. But legal tech start-ups cannot even start in Korea.

Other platform-based service providers are also warring with industry interest groups — “3.3” (samjjeomsam), which helps income tax report, against the Korean Association of Certified Public Tax Accountants; “GangnamUnni,” a guide to beauty clinics, versus the Korea Medical Association; and Doctor Now, a noncontact medical platform, against the Korea Pharmaceutical Association.

Telemedicine or noncontact medical care is still stuck in the trial process. Platform start-ups are forced to throw in the towel just one month into trial service, as their trial service has been restricted to community clinics and return patients. During the three-year Covid-19 period, 3,661 patients got their service online without a single mishap. Yet Korea, which boasts the highest IT supremacy among the OECD members, is yet to legalize telemedicine.

Some have been customary for so long that they are not even perceived as regulations. The farm-level milk prices which affect the end-product pricing are negotiated between farmers and dairy producers. Differentiated pricing system went into place from this year to reflect market conditions, but the pricing system still favors the supply end. Although the local dairy industry should be protected, market conditions are unfavorable. Imports of long-life milk from Poland that sells at just half the price of local milk have surged. Sterilized milk imports from the U.S. and eurozone would become cheaper from 2026 when tariffs on dairy products are lifted.

The technology innovation wave is raging. Nondairy milk made out of plants like soy, nuts, almond, or grains like oats make up 15 percent of the milk market in the U.S. and 11 percent in west Europe. Start-ups around the world are jumping into the imitation milk market based on lab-grown microorganism and yeast extract. Cell-based dairy analogues use less water and emits less greenhouse gas. They can be made anywhere without any need of antibiotics, not to mention being produced without the substances that causes allergies or other diseases.

Singapore in 2020 became the first country in the world to approve the sales of cell-cultured meat based on the stem cells from the fat or muscles of an animal. The U.S. gave its go-ahead last month. Singapore which imports more than 90 percent of the food its people consume aims to raise its food self-sufficiency rate to 30 percent by 2030. It is readying a safety belt against shocks in food supplies. The government is supporting with equipment for dairy-tech start-ups. Food start-ups are rushing to Singapore due to its fast adoption. The Economist said that a bloodless food revolution is underway. Although revolutions are active elsewhere, Korea is fighting with regulations that are stifling and sticky than the sizzling and steamy summer these days.