Cha & Kwon represented a financial institution in responding to the Sanction Deliberation Commission process of the Financial Supervisory Service’s (hereafter the “FSS”) or that of Financial Services Commission (hereafter the “FSC”). (2021. 5. - 2021. 07.)

Financial institutions mostly require legal advisory service from external specialists. This is because

even though they might have adequate reponse logic, if the financial institutes proceed sanction process response by themselves, they face many problems. For example, i) they might not be able to vindicate their reponse logic appropriately, or ii) fail to complete writing the references due to time restraint after having spent too much time setting the reference directions or the details of it, or iii) even they have written the references appropriately, the workload of the employees may hinder business activities.

Based on our diverse and abundant experience on finance area, we have proved that

1) the controversial issues were legally vague,

2) the unclear signals on the market provided by several administrative offices have confused financial institutions

3) the FSS had not restricted or required rectification even after recognizing controversial issues in the field

4) the FSS had examined corporates similar to the client but did not restrict or required rectification on similar business conducts

5) on the Sanction Deliberation Commission site, the FSS examination team had to admit that the FSS’ approach on the controversial issue had changed since July 2020.

With such arguments, Cha & Kwon alleviated the sanction level expected from the FSS to level 2, and alleviated once again to level 1 from FSC vote. As a result, the sanction level of business suspension was lowered to attentional warning.

Cha & Kwon provides response service against sanctions from financial institutions, aiming to minimize damage from excessive restrictions.