Government battle continues on amendment to the Commercial Act

[Anchor]

These days, there is a bill that independent traders and the business community are showing great interest in.

It is the amendment to the Commercial Act.

The ruling and opposition parties are engaged in a tug-of-war without any concessions.

Reporter Jung Jae-woo will give a simplified explanation of the issues.

[Report]

Four years ago, LG Chem decided to split its core business in the battery sector.

Despite opposition from some shareholders, including the National Pension Service, the spun-off subsidiary LG Energy Solution was listed, and LG Chem's market capitalization halved as it lost its core growth engine.

The Democratic Party is committed to amending the Commercial Act by the end of this year to prevent shareholder losses in such cases.

They plan to add 'shareholders' to the provision that 'directors must be faithful to the company' in order to protect shareholder interests and prevent damage to minority shareholders during mergers or splits.

[Lee Jae-myung/Democratic Party Leader/Nov. 28: "I assure you that we will definitely amend the Commercial Act. The core issue will be the revision of the director's duty of loyalty, and in addition, a system that guarantees equal rights for shareholders..."]

While general investors in the stock market have expressed optimism about this legislative move,

[Shim Hye-seop/Director of the Korea Corporate Governance Forum: "I believe it will help resolve the Korea discount, and upgrade the capital market several steps."]

major conglomerates issued urgent statements, saying that company management could become difficult.

[Kim Chang-beom/Vice Chairman of the Korea Economic Association: "Many companies are suffering from excessive lawsuits and attacks from foreign speculative capital, making it difficult to operate the board of directors normally..."]

The government and the ruling party are opposing this, arguing that due to concerns about side effects, the Capital Market Act, which only applies to listed companies, should be amended instead of the Commercial Act.

[Kim Sang-hoon/Chairman of the Policy Committee of the People Power Party/Nov. 29: "If excessive and unreasonable amendments to the Commercial Act are realized, they will apply indiscriminately to both listed and unlisted companies, causing tremendous concern and opposition from businesses and the market..."]

The Democratic Party plans to hold a discussion on December 4th to gather opinions from various sectors, including the business community and investors.

This is KBS News, Jung Jae-woo.