Description

The purpose of my talk is to examine, from a comparative perspective, outside directors in three East Asian countries, namely, Japan, Korea and China. Outside directors have never left the center stage in corporate governance discourse everywhere. Wide discrepancy exists; however, in the role outside directors actually play in each country. Despite commonalities existing among the three East Asian jurisdictions, the law and reality of outside directors vary substantially in each country. My talk will cover the following points. First, I will discuss the principal agent problem of each country’s corporate governance, as outside directors have been devised as an instrument to cope with the agency problem. I will then touch on the history and current state regarding outside directors in each country, which will reveal disparities among the three countries in embracing outside directors. At the end, I will attempt to analyze reasons for such disparities.

About The Speaker

Kon Sik Kim is Professor of Law at Seoul National University (SNU), teaching corporate law and securities regulation since 1986. A graduate of the SNU College of Law, he got an LL.M. from Harvard, and a J.D. and a Ph.D. from University of Washington. Serving as inaugural dean of the SNU School of Law, he had represented the twenty-five law schools in Korea as president of the Korea Association of Law Schools from 2008 to 2010.

He has founded two law journals: the Journal of Korean Law, an English-language journal covering legal issues and developments in Korea, and BFL, a Korean-language law journal specializing in corporate and finance law. In 2013, he served as president of the Korea Commercial Law Association.

He has published and edited numerous books and articles in the field of corporate law, including leading treatises on capital market law and corporate law. He has visited various distinguished institutions such as The University of Tokyo and Harvard Law School and will visit NYU Law School (Global Faculty) for Fall 2016.

He has extensive experience in advising various institutions such as the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Finance and Economy in Korea and The University of Tokyo Law School and World Bank. He has been on the board of three large listed firms in Korea. He has extensive experience as expert witness or arbitrator in connection with a variety of litigation and arbitrations, both domestic and international.