About the Speaker

Hyun Jae Park, Attorney, Kim & Chang

Hyun Jae Park is an attorney at Kim & Chang’s Labor & Employment, Mergers & Acquisitions and Privacy & Data Security Practices.

?Mr. Park advises multinational employers on all aspects of employment and labor related matters including employment policies and benefits, performance management and termination, employment litigation, business restructuring, employee data privacy, labor management relations, collective bargaining negotiation, employment and labor related issues in M&A and post-merger integration.

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Matthew F. Jones, Attorney, Kim & Chang

Matthew F. Jones is a senior foreign attorney at Kim & Chang. He primarily practices in the area of labor & employment.

?Mr. Jones advises multi-national clients doing business in Korea on day-to-day legal issues affecting the workplace, including employee discipline and terminations, unions and collective bargaining negotiations and strategy, workforce reductions, workplace privacy, employment contracts, labor-related issues in M&A, crisis management, immigration issues and other human resources issues. He has also overseen and conducted hundreds of internal investigations involving allegations of employee misconduct.

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Sung Min Won, Attorney, Kim & Chang

[Experience]

- Kim & Chang (2018-Present)
- Vice President, McDonald’s Korea (2010-2018)
- Senior Regional Counsel, McDonald’s APMEA & General Counsel, McDonald’s Korea (2005-2009)
- Lee & Ko (2003-2005)
- International Procurements Officer, Defense Procurement Agency, Ministry of National Defense of Korea (2000-2003)

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Yunjoh Lee, Attorney, Kim & Chang

Yunjoh Lee is a senior attorney at Kim & Chang, and focuses her practice on advising clients in the life sciences, animal health, food, and cosmetics industries.

Ms. Lee has extensive experience advising multinational companies in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries. She helps major multinational companies navigate the hurdles of doing business in Korea’s challenging environment, including complex regulations and active enforcement by Korean authorities. She also advises multinational companies in these industries to plan and implement acquisitions, divestitures, restructuring and realignment of their businesses in Korea. Ms. Lee also advises companies on the formation and operation of co-promotion, co-marketing, and distribution relationships and other business alliances with local partners.

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Webinar Brief

In this section, the webinar covered the various cost reduction measures that are available to companies under Korean law, such as encouragement to use annual leave, business suspension and layoffs. In addition to measures that companies can implement unilaterally, several measures were covered that companies can implement with consent of the employees.

On the topic of business suspension, which may take the form of full suspension or reduced working hours, the “employment maintenance subsidy” was mentioned. It is available under Korean law to support companies that must pay 70% of average wage to employees during the period of the business suspension, including the requirements to apply for the subsidy, the amount of the subsidy, how long the subsidy lasts and what restrictions apply while receiving the subsidy. 

2. Work from Home

With the Korean government’s announcement on April 4, 2020 that it will extend the social distancing campaign that began on March 22, 2020 for another two (2) weeks, many companies are extending work from home arrangements.

In this section, the speakers discussed legal issues that may arise while employees work from home, including the legal rights of employers to enforce work from home, the legal right to call employees back to work, obligations to compensate for home utilities when a company asks employees to work from home and whether employees are still covered by workers’ compensation insurance.

3. Guidelines to Protect Employees’ Health

In this section, the speakers summarized the guidelines in place about travelling from overseas to Korea. This part covered the 14 day self-quarantine requirement, including where the quarantine can be served, how the Korean government enforces it as well as the criminal and civil consequences of violating the quarantine requirement.

The speakers also explained what companies should do when a case of COVID-19 is confirmed at their work place. As part of this, we pointed out the privacy law issues to consider when informing other employees at the company about the confirmed case.

* Summary of key points of Korean law and MOEL guidelines regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, including the new guidelines regarding working from home;
* Overview of cost reduction tools available under Korean law, both with employee consent and without employee consent;
* Process of applying for government subsidies when an company implements a temporary business suspension; 
* Responding to common questions that we have received from our clients regarding COVID-19.

Full Details