The Enforcement Decree (the “Enforcement Decree”) of the Improper Solicitation and Graft Act (a.k.a Kim Young-Ran Act, the “Anti-Graft Act”) went into effect starting from January 17, 2018. The Enforcement Decree contains amendments concerning the cap amounts that apply to food, gifts, and cash gifts provided to public officials as well as lecture fees paid to public officials1. The table below provides an overview of the key amendments to the Anti-Graft Act pursuant to the Enforcement Decree.

For purposes of the above, the term ‘agricultural and fishery goods’ refers to goods that are produced from the growing of agricultural crops, livestock industry, forestry, and fishery activities, and appears to exclude salt pursuant to subparagraph 1, Article 2, of the Salt Industry Promotion Act (subparagraph 3 of Annex Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree of the Anti-Graft Act; Article 2(1)1(a) of the Agricultural and Marine Products Quality Control Act; subparagraph 6 of Article 3 of the Framework Act on Agriculture, Rural Community and Food Industry; Articles 2 and 5 of the Enforcement Decree thereof; and subparagraph 1, item (a), of Article 3 of the Framework Act on Development of Fishery and Fishing Villages), and the term ‘processed agricultural and fishery goods’ refers to goods which have been processed wherein more than 50% of source or raw materials used are agricultural and fishery goods (subparagraph 3 of Annex Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree of the Anti-Graft Act, and Article 2(1)13 of the Agricultural and Marine Products Quality Control Act). If two or more items of food, gifts, and cash gifts are provided in combination with each other (this includes circumstances wherein regular gifts are provided alongside agricultural or fishery goods/processed agricultural or fishery goods) or different types of cash gifts are combined with each other (e.g., cash gift + wreathes/floral arrangements), the total value of whatever is provided may not exceed the cap amount applicable to whichever category has the highest cap amount. Furthermore, the value of each category may also not exceed its individual cap amount. (Please refer to the remarks section of Annex Table 1 of the Enforcement Decree).

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