Promotion of Burden Reduction for Businesses Including Expansion of Substitute Penalties for Business Suspension

[Asia Economy Reporter Kwangho Lee] The government is promoting measures to enhance the effectiveness of sanctions by replacing business suspension penalties with fines in cases where business suspension causes public inconvenience, such as in public transportation, or imposes excessive burdens on operators.

On the 28th, the Office for Government Policy Coordination announced at the Cabinet meeting that it reported the "Measures to Improve the Efficiency of the Business Suspension Replacement Fine System" through consultations with related ministries to reduce the burden on operators and enhance the effectiveness of sanctions.

The business suspension replacement fine system allows imposing fines instead of administrative sanctions of business suspension for operators' violations of laws and regulations.

Currently, 156 laws stipulate business suspension, and among them, 78 laws have introduced the business suspension replacement fine system. While the replacement fine system can alleviate excessive burdens on operators and resolve inconveniences experienced by users due to business suspension, if the replacement fines are set too low, the effectiveness of sanctions may not be secured, raising concerns about insufficient deterrence against illegal acts.

The Office for Government Policy Coordination decided to newly introduce the replacement fine system in 32 of the 78 laws where it has not yet been applied, and additionally introduce it in 3 laws among those already applied, expanding it to a total of 35 laws. However, laws related to safety, environment, market order, and consumer protection are excluded from the review for introducing replacement fines.

Under the current Express Bus Rapid Transit Act, if transportation begins without reporting or changing the fare, a business suspension of up to 20 days is imposed. Since this causes public inconvenience, the replacement fine system will be introduced. To prevent abuse of the replacement fine system, control measures such as limiting the number of impositions to a maximum of two times will be established.

Among the 78 laws where the replacement fine system has been introduced, the upper limit of fines will be raised for 20 laws considering factors such as sales scale and similar legislative precedents.

The Parking Lot Act imposes a fine with an upper limit of 3 million KRW if the use of a parking lot is refused to the general public without justifiable reasons. Since it was introduced in 1983, 37 years have passed, and considering inflation and operators' sales scale, the upper limit will be raised.

The criteria for imposing replacement fines and collection procedures will also be improved. When a fixed fine is imposed regardless of the business suspension period or operator's sales, criteria considering the suspension period and sales will be established. To reduce the burden on those subject to replacement fines, installment payments and extensions of payment deadlines will be allowed in cases of significant property damage due to disasters, etc.

An official from the Office for Government Policy Coordination said, "We plan to promptly promote legislation so that related bills will be submitted to the National Assembly within this year."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.