• Korea Trade Review
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.205-225
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• 2017

The study attempts to verify the case related to the notice of payment refusal by issuing bank regarding discrepancy in transport document under L/C(Letter of Credit) transaction. Considering the high portion of trade between Korea and China, Korean companies and banks in L/C transaction should be careful about many unpredictable situations. The case of this study is that Chinese seller(beneficiary) initiated a civil suit against Industrial Bank of Korea to Chinese court and Chinese courts in the first and second trials judged that the notice of payment refusal by Industrial bank of Korea doesn't satisfy Article 16, (c) (ii) (iii) in UCP 600. However, Industrial Bank of Korea implements the judgement even though the judgement is highly biased to Chinese seller. Considering the judgement by Chinese courts, the study suggests some countermeasures to Korean companies and banks which opened L/C. First, the issuing bank should describe the contents of discrepancy specifically based on Article 16, (c) in UCP 600. Second, it is necessary to insert a clause regarding governing law in the L/C contract like sales contract. Third, considering the biased judgement by Chinese court and difficulty in execution of foreign judgement in China, it is recommended to using arbitration as a method of dispute resolution such as ICLOCA and DOCDEX Rules which are international system operated by international instruments because it has legal effects to parties in L/C contracts if the issuing bank inserts arbitration clause in L/C.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.137-155
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• 2007

Since China joined the WTO, the trade between Korea and China has continued to grow by leaps and bounds, making both nations become mutually important trading partners to each other. The volume of trades with China showed a rapid upward trend with an average annual increase rate of 20% and the resultant dispute is also rising. Thus, this study was aimed to make some suggestions and come up with ways of responding claims by surveying Korean trading firms which have experience in making transactions with China to investigate the current status and the actual condition of their occurrence. As a result of this study, firstly, the main cause of such dispute was shown to be the failure to perform the agreement. Secondly, there were malty verbal agreements and due to a deterioration of trust in Chinese firms, the method of a letter of credit was adopted by many Korean firms. Thirdly, the payment and credit appeared to be most important in transactions with China. A credit inquiry is a must in future transactions with China. Fourthly, the indirect cause of the occurrence of trade claims was the difference in commercial practices and as for the way of settling disputes, the agreement through negotiations between the parties involved was the most. Fifthly, small and medium firms should make more of their credit and English proficiency than large ones do.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.31-52
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• 2012

Although political uncertainty exists between China and Taiwan, the two countries have been expanding their economic exchange since the 1980s. That economic exchange is not limited to trade, and its investment segment is constantly expanding. The investment was one-sided by Taiwan in the past, but since a change in policy by the Taiwan government in 2009, Chinese capital is able to flow into Taiwan for direct investment. These kinds of policy changes related to investment between the two countries require follow-up actions such as profit protection for investors, elimination of investment limitations, simplification of investment procedures, and establishment of an investment dispute resolution system. The main topic of this study is the resolution mechanism for investment disputes between China and Taiwan. At present, an individual investment dispute between two countries is settled according to each country's own regulations for dispute resolution. However, these two countries have not prepared dispute resolution regulations related to cases of investment disputes between Chinese or Taiwanese investors and the Chinese or Taiwanese government, or between the Chinese government and the Taiwanese government. Moreover, they do not have any agreements related to investment disputes. Therefore, in this paper, I enumerate the regulations related to investment dispute resolution between China and Taiwan, and then I point out the problems and suggest solutions for improvement. Also, through this study, I would like to contribute to establishing and implementing an investment dispute resolution mechanism between South Korea and North Korea.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.183-213
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• 2011

China and North America have been South Korea's biggest trading partner long time. As the volume of trade has been increasing, the disputes between Korean companies and Chinese Companies and between Korean companies and North American Companies have been increasing. If these disputes are settled by Arbitration, the parties appoint arbitrators who are empowered to proceed the arbitration procedure and have a power to render an arbitral award. Accordingly, it is very important for the parties to select who is an arbitrators in Arbitration. But if the parties doubt their arbitrator(s)'s fairness and independency, they can discharge them in accordance to law and arbitration institute's rules. In comparison with arbitrator system for way of selection and discharge among Korea, China and North America, some differences are found. First, if parties fail to appoint co-arbitrators or the presiding arbitrator by a mutual agreement, the court has the right to appoint them or him in Korea and North America whereas the Chairman of CIETAC choose him in China. Second, the authority to decide whether arbitrator is discharged owing to his fairness and independency, depends on arbitration institute and court in Korea and North American whereas it depends on the Chairman of CIETAC only.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.46
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• pp.315-350
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• 2010

The rapid growth of Korea-China trade that was since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992, led China to surpass the United States and Japan to become Korea's largest trading partner in 2009. "The largest trade" also means "the most disputes", so it is essential to study on dispute settlement and enforcement system of the two. Therefore, in order to make the traders correctly understand and use the arbitration as a dispute settlement method in both China and Korea, this article makes a comparative study on arbitration system between the two countries. And finally, it analyzes the enforcement situation of arbitral award in China, then provides the author's personal recommendations as a countermeasure against the poor enforcement system in China.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.55-85
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• 1998

Each of China, Taiwan, Japan and Korea is in international trade one of the major countries in Asia and has been influenced by the Chinese character culture and the Civil law system. All these countries have their own commercial dispute resolution system for international trade dispute and commercial arbitration mechanism in their countries. They are making their own effort to internationalize and improve their commercial arbitration system. Among these countries China enacted a new arbitration law already. At that time Chinese arbitration law was referred to the UNCITRAL Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration for internationalization of Chinese commercial arbitration system. China also internationalized the panel of arbitrators by increasing the foreign arbitrators of the panel of arbitrators of CIETAC. These measures adopted by China will be the model of dispute resolution and the commercial arbitration system in other major countries in Asia.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.101-124
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• 2007

The legal systems and open-door policies to foreign affairs in North Korea have been followed by those of China. Whereas an arbitration system of South Korea accepted most parts of UNCITRAL Model Law, North Korea has succeeded to an arbitration system of a socialist country. China, under the arbitration system of socialist country, enacted an arbitration act reflected from UNCITRAL Model Law for keeping face with international trends. We have used these three arbitration system as a tool for analyzing an arbitration system in North Korea. With an open-door policy, North Korea and China enacted an arbitration act to provide a legal security. Therefore, the core parts of arbitration system in North Korea and China are based on a socialist system while those of South Korea is on liberalism. So, North Korea and China enacted an arbitration act on the basis of institutional arbitration, on the other side, South Korea is based on ad-hoc arbitration. Because of these characters, in terms of party autonomy, it is recognized with the order as South Korea, China and North Korea. Also North Korea enacted separate 'Foreign Economic Arbitration Act' to resolve disputes arising out of foreign economies including commercial things and investments. There are differences in arbitration procedures and appointment of arbitrators : South Korea recognizes parties' autonomy, however parties should follow the arbitration rules of arbitration institutes in North Korea and China. According to an appointment of arbitrators, if parties fail to appoint co-arbitrators or chief arbitrators by a mutual agreement, the court has the right to appoint them. In case of following KCAB's rules, KCAB secretariats take a scoring system by providing a list of candidates. A party has to appoint arbitrators out of the lists provided by arbitration board(or committee) in North Korea. If a party may fail to appoint a chief arbitrator, President of International Trade Arbitration Board(or Committee) may appoint it. In China, if parties fail to appoint a co-arbitrator or a chief arbitrator by a mutual agreement, Secretary general will decide it. If a arbitral tribunal fails to give a final award by a majority decision, a chief arbitrator has the right for a final decision making. These arbitration systems in North Korea and China are one of concerns that our companies take into account in conducting arbitration procedures inside China. It is only possible for a party to enforce a final arbitral award when he applies an arbitration inside North Korea according to International Trade Arbitration Act because North Korea has not joined the New York Convention. It's doubtful that a party might be treated very fairly in arbitration procedures in North Korea because International Trade Promotion Commission controls(or exercises its rights against) International Trade Arbitration Commission(or Board).

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.49-97
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• 2014

This study is about the availability of Chinese internal arbitration institutions by Korean invested companies. Generally, Chinese internal arbitration institutions lack independence from government. However, because parties seeking an arbitration award have ways to get neutrality from internal arbitration institutions that guarantee party autonomy, these Korean companies can use Chinese internal arbitration institutions to resolve disputes in China. Special attention should be given to the following. First, because Korean companies invested in China are legally in the same position as Chinese companies, unless foreign-related factors intervene, when disputes occur with Chinese companies or individuals, the disputes correspond to internal dispute, and when it comes to choosing the arbitration institution, these Korean companies must choose either a Chinese internal arbitration institution or foreign-related arbitration institution. Second, most Chinese internal arbitration institutions still lack independence from government, which can influence the fairness of arbitration in the future. Therefore, Korean companies invested in China should think about alternative ways to get a minimum impartiality in arbitration cases. Third, the parties are allowed to choose arbitration rules freely in Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou arbitration commissions. Therefore, in arbitration cases, the parties can get impartiality by choosing arbitrators according to the arbitration rules which they agree on, or by choosing partially modified arbitration rules of those arbitration commissions. Fourth, in order to get an impartial arbitration award from Chinese internal arbitration institutions in China, it is important for Korean lawyers or arbitration experts -- fluent in Chinese -- to be registered in the List of Arbitrators of Chinese internal arbitration institution by way of signing a MOU between the Korean Commercial Arbitration Board, or the Korean Association of Arbitration Studies and arbitration commissions such as those of Beijing, Xian, Chongqing, Guangzhou, and Hangzhou which comparatively do guarantee party autonomy. Fifth, because application of the preservation of property before application of arbitration is not approved in China, in practice, in order to preserve property before application of arbitration, it is best to file another suit in China based on other legal issue (e.g., tort) independent from the contract which an arbitration agreement is applied to. Sixth, in arbitration commissions which allow different agreement regarding arbitration procedures or arbitration rules, it is possible to choose a neutral arbitrator from a third country as a presiding arbitrator via UNCITRAL arbitration rules or ICC arbitration rules. Seventh, in the case of Chinese internal arbitral award, because the court reviews the substantive matters to decide the refusal of compulsory execution, the execution rate could be relatively lower than that of foreign-related cases. Therefore, when Korean companies invested in China use Chinese internal arbitration institution, they should endure low rate of execution. Eighth, considering the operational experiences of public policy on foreign-related arbitration awards so far, in cases of Chinese internal arbitration award, the possibility of cancellation of arbitral award or the possibility to refuse to execute the award due to public policy is thought to be higher than that of foreign arbitral awards. Ninth, even though a treaty on judicial assistance in civil and commercial matters has been signed between Korea and China, and it includes a provision on acknowledgement and enforcement of arbitral award, when trying to resolve disputes through Chinese internal arbitration institution, the treaty would not be a big help to resolve the disputes, because the disputes between Korean companies invested in China and the party in China are not subject to the treaty. Tenth, considering recent tendency of conciliation by the arbitral tribunal in China and the voluntary execution rate of the parties, the system of conciliation by the arbitral tribunal is expected to affect as a positive factor the Korean companies that use Chinese internal arbitration institution. Finally, when using online arbitration, arbitration fees can be reduced, and if the arbitration commissions guaranteeing party autonomy have online arbitration system, the possibility of getting impartial arbitration award through them is higher. Therefore, the use of online arbitration system is recommended.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.115-136
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• 2011

In the past, Chinese arbitral system and Chinese arbitral associations were avoided by international society due to the cases which Chinese court rejected the recognition and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards based on rural protection. Especially Chinese court adjudicated to reject the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards by interpreting public policy broadly. The abuse of public policy by court threats the existence of commercial arbitration system. Under this awareness, the author figured out Chinese court shows what kind of attitude about public policy of Chinese court in the present through analyzing the cases about rejection of enforcement in Chinese arbitral awards in order to analyze whether Chinese court still maintain the negative attitude like past or there exist changes with public policy which is one of the rejection reasons of recognition and enforcement in foreign arbitral awards as the central figure. Chinese court behaved in an uncooperative attitude about arbitral awards like that it reached a verdict to reject the enforcement of arbitral awards by reason of violation in public policy about several foreign arbitral awards at the beginning stage of establishing arbitration law. However, the situation of abuse in public policy was improved a lot by Chinese prime court which enforces pre-inspection system about judgment of rejection of enforcement in arbitral awards. So, there is no case about rejecting the approval and enforcement of arbitral awards by reason of violation in public policy by Chinese court except Yongning Co. case. Moreover, Chinese court got the trust and support from other countries through reinforcement of applied standard. However, Chinese court had been expressed concern from international society because they highly applied public policy and rejected to enforce arbitral awards in the recent case of Yongning Co.. Therefore, this study examined whether it is appropriate to apply public policy of Chinese court in the case of Yongning Co., and then I concluded that. Although Yongning Co. case is the first case which Chinese prime court agrees with public policy by reason of rejection of approval and enforcement in foreign arbitral awards, in my opinion, it doesn't mean that Chinese court has fundamental change in basic attitude and position about the approval and enforcement of foreign arbitral awards. Chinese court keeps the cautious uses of public policy in legal judgment of foreign arbitral awards and it looks like implementing the obligation in regulation of New York Convention sincerely.

• Proceedings of KOSOMES biannual meeting
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• 2017.11a
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• pp.221-221
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• 2017