Seoul: Prime Minister Han Seong-sook announced that the government is set to implement a class action system across all consumer sectors to enhance consumer rights significantly.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Han made this announcement during a consumer policy committee meeting, where she underscored various government initiatives aimed at bolstering consumer rights. These initiatives include expanding consumer data rights in the era of artificial intelligence and increasing safety inspections. Han emphasized the government's commitment to establishing a comprehensive consumer rights protection system. "We will introduce a class action system across all consumer sectors and create a new system for court orders to instruct businesses to submit data, ensuring that a substantial recovery is possible even in the event of large-scale consumer damage," Han stated.
The class action system allows a lawsuit's ruling to apply to all affected parties, not just the original plaintiffs. While countries like the United States and Britain have long had such systems in place, South Korea has limited its use to the securities sector since its introduction in 2005. The potential expansion of this system gained attention last December when Ju Biung-ghi, chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, suggested during a parliamentary hearing on a significant data breach involving e-commerce giant Coupang Inc. that the government might consider broader implementation.
Source: Yonhap News Agency