[Bills in Focus] Easing burden on subcontractors, protecting consumer interests

(123rf)

Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Act on Special Measures for Strengthening the Competitiveness of, and Protecting National High-tech Strategic Industries

Proposed by Rep. Yang Hyang-ja (Hope of Korea)

● In response to demands to diversify and strengthen government support for specialized complexes and high-tech technologies, this amendment allows the state to directly create industrial infrastructure of specialized complexes, expands support for the creation and operation of specialized complexes, and increases the floor area ratio within specialized complexes.

Proposed Bill: Partial Amendment to the Fair Transactions in Subcontracting Act

Proposed by Rep. Choi Seung-jae (People Power Party)

● To increase the effectiveness of the price linkage system and ease the burden on subcontractors, this amendment includes electricity costs, labor costs, and other expenses that account for at least 10 percent of the subcontract price as applicable subjects of the subcontract price linkage system.

Pending Bill: Partial Amendment to the Small and Medium Enterprise Cooperatives Act

Proposed by Rep. Woo Won-shik (Democratic Party of Korea)

● The existing law allows small and medium enterprises that supply large enterprises to engage in collective actions for price increases and adjustments in production, etc., in subcontracting or consignment transactions if such actions do not compromise consumers’ interests. This amendment defines and limits the term “consumer” in the above regulation to the definition of consumer under the Framework Act on Consumers. The purpose of this amendment is to prevent the interests of large corporations from being excessively protected by preventing “infringement on consumer interests” from being interpreted broadly.

Promulgated Bill: Enforcement Rule of the Parking Lot Act

Competent Authority: Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport

● This bill mandates the installation of a deceleration zone in parking slopes to prevent damage to the underside of cars. It also prevents line-of-sight accidents by prohibiting parking lot entrances and exits from having straight slopes that exceed 8.5 percent or curved slopes that exceed 7 percent within 3 meters of where the slope is connected to pedestrian walkways.

Administrative Announcement: Proposed Bill for the Enforcement Decree of the Act on the Protection of Virtual Asset Users

Competent Authority: Financial Services Commission

● This bill excludes electronic bonds, mobile gift certificates, deposit tokens issued by Central Bank Digital Currency networks, and NFTs from the application of the Virtual Asset Users Protection Act’s enforcement decree and supervisory regulations. It also requires 80 percent of the economic value of a user’s virtual assets to be stored in a cold wallet.

By Korea Herald(khnews@heraldcorp.com)