Korean Officials Quit Jobs to Join Crypto Industry, Lawmaker Reveals

Public officers in South Korea are more and more selecting profession alternatives within the cryptocurrency sector. Some of them come from monetary authorities which raises moral questions, in keeping with the findings of a Korean lawmaker, quoted by native media.

Former Financial Officials Hired by Major Korean Exchanges

A rising variety of officers in Seoul are vacating their authorities posts and shifting to the crypto business, in keeping with Roh Woong-rae, member of the Korean parliament from the ruling Democratic Party. On Sunday, he referred to as for the introduction of stricter guidelines concerning their employment after leaving public service.

Quoted by the Korea Herald, the lawmaker revealed {that a} Grade 5 worker on the nation’s primary monetary regulator, the Financial Services Commission (FSC), has lately stop his place to hitch Bithumb, which is without doubt one of the main digital asset exchanges in South Korea.

Roh admitted that laws now don’t prohibit such employment. At the identical time, he believes that it’s fairly inappropriate for a former FSC official to instantly be a part of a crypto firm overseen by the regulatory company he has been working for.

Government officers in Korea are categorised in keeping with their seniority, with Grade 1 being the highest stage. Only Grade 4 and better officers on the FSC and the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), one other main regulator, are at present required to bear employment screening earlier than getting a job at a non-public firm.



According to the Public Service Ethics Act, authorities staff above Grade 4 usually are not allowed to occupy a place within the personal sector, when it’s related to their former work, for 3 years after the date they go away the state physique. Korea’s antitrust watchdog, the Fair Trade Commission, screens the employment standing of all officers at Grade 7 stage and above, Noh added.

However, the lawmaker slammed the general public service ethics committee conducting the employment screening for not completely reviewing all circumstances. He offered an instance with a high-ranking FSS official who had been answerable for the fintech house earlier than discovering a brand new job at Upbit, one other massive crypto change in South Korea.

Rep. Roh Woong-rae identified that the ethics committee had not seen any points with the transfer. But in his view, it’s exhausting to grasp the results of the screening because the official had been concerned with issues intently associated to digital belongings.

Such circumstances usually are not restricted to monetary regulators, the parliamentarian remarked. He additional revealed {that a} police officer from the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency, who led a staff investigating crypto-related crimes, is now making ready to hitch Upbit, too. “Recruiting former and present personnel from the FSC and the police, that are in command of laws, may be very unethical, in that they’re extra prone to function a defend than specialists,” Roh commented.

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