In 1996, Korea deregulated its foreign direct investment restrictions dramatically in order to meet the requirement of OECD member status. In addition, the financial crisis of late 1997 in Korea caused it to get IMF fund assistance.
The IMF recommended Korea to liberalize its financial market so as to induce foreign direct investment. Therefore, Korea eliminated its restrictions on foreign direct investment without the sufficient protection mechanism for its national security interests.
This article introduces various laws and regulation of major countries with respect to protecting their national security interests. Especially, Exon-Florio Amendment, National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1993, and Foreign Investment and National Security Act of 2007 of the United States are reviewed. It also analyzes golden shares rules of European countries and the national laws of the Great Britain, France and Germany. It also deals with recent amendment of Japan's Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act.
After discussing problems confronted with Korea Foreign Investment Promotion Act, this article suggests to introduce more precise definitions of national security by including the notion of critical infrastructure and critical technologies.
It also proposes to expand the types of covered transactions which do not include the acquisition of stocks of target companies such as voting agreement or voting trust.
This article recommends to introduce more clear and specified procedures in regulating foreign direct investment in terms of the transparency and the predictability.