backSouth Korea’s Cabinet on Tuesday approved a major criminal justice reform that will separate criminal investigations from prosecutions and remove prosecutors’ authority to directly investigate serious crimes, including economic offenses.1See Ji Da-gyum, Cabinet approves bill ending prosecutors’ investigative powers, The Korea Herald (Aug. 4, 2026), https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10830567. The reform results from a multiyear effort to reduce the concentration of power in the prosecution service, which has historically played a central role in both investigating crimes and making charging decisions.
The change could have important implications for criminal antitrust enforcement in South Korea. The Korean Ministry of Justice and the Korean Prosecution Service (KPS) have been among the most aggressive global antitrust enforcers in recent years, particularly in the criminal arena. A 2020 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division, and the KPS, providing for criminal cartel enforcement cooperation, has contributed to this uptick in enforcement.2Memorandum of Understanding Between the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Korean Prosecution Service on Criminal Cartel Enforcement Cooperation (2020), https://www.justice.gov/atr/file/383062/dl?inline. Under the MOU, the two agencies committed to notify each other of related criminal cartel investigations, coordinate parallel enforcement, and share policy developments and enforcement experience. This historic partnership has directly resulted in dozens of criminal antitrust charges in both the United States and Korea, including twenty criminal antitrust indictments filed by the KPS in May 2025 against both companies and individuals.3Press Release, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, U.S. and South Korean Authorities Uncover Bid-Rigging Scheme (May 2025), https://www.cid.army.mil/Media-Resources/Releases/Article-Display/Article/4198963/us-and-south-korean-authorities-uncover-bid-rigging-scheme/.
That history makes Korea a key jurisdiction for companies assessing antitrust risk, including dawn raids, leniency, and parallel exposure across Asia and the United States. The transfer of investigative authority away from the KPS nevertheless creates uncertainty for future cooperation.
Under the new framework, judicial police officers will become the primary investigators, while prosecutors will focus on charging decisions.4Sayuri Umeda, South Korea: Public Prosecution Reform, Law Library of Congress (June 2023), https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/llglrd/2023555904/2023555904.pdf; see supra note 1. Prosecutors will be able to request supplementary investigations, but they will no longer control or conduct those investigations directly. The separate investigative and prosecution bodies, including the new Serious Crimes Investigation Office, are scheduled to launch on October 2, 2026.
The transition could complicate complex cartel cases requiring coordinated raids, interviews, leniency decisions, and cross-border coordination with the United States and other countries. On the other hand, a specialized investigative office could instead build expertise and allow prosecutors to focus on charging decisions, evidentiary sufficiency, and trial strategy. Leniency is a particular uncertainty. Prosecutors currently may investigate criminal cartel cases directly, including cases not referred by the Korean Fair Trade Commission, and grant immunity or reduced penalties based on the order of application and level of cooperation with prosecutors. Separating investigative functions may complicate that process.
Despite these questions, recent enforcement activity suggests that companies should not assume a near-term retreat. Just in the last few days Korean officials charged six major pork suppliers and twelve of their executives with alleged price-fixing and evidence tampering for conspiring to fix pork prices over a six-year period between 2017 and 2023.5Yang Ji-hye, Prosecutors Charge Firms Over 1.2 Trillion Won Pork Price-Fixing, Seoul Economic Daily (Aug. 4, 2026), https://en.sedaily.com/society/2026/08/04/prosecutors-charge-firms-over-12-trillion-won-pork-price. They also executed searches on several petrochemical companies as part of an investigation into alleged price-fixing involving products such as caustic soda and polyvinyl chloride (PVC), according to media reports,6South Korea Raids Petrochemical Firms in Price-Fixing Probe, Media Reports, Reuters (Aug. 5, 2026), https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-raids-petrochemical-firms-price-fixing-probe-media-reports-2026-08-05/. while prosecutors have continued aggressive public-procurement investigations and enforcement involving consumer-facing price-fixing and technology markets.
Given Korea’s role as a critical manufacturing and supply-chain hub, companies with Korea-facing sales, procurement, distribution, licensing, or technology activities should continue to treat Korean criminal antitrust risk as a high priority. They should refresh compliance programs for dawn raids and employee interviews, account for transition-related uncertainty in leniency decisions, and ensure global investigation teams monitor how the new offices handle supplementary investigations and criminal referrals in their first cases.
Additional Contributors: Lucy Bartel