Drastic ease of administrative punishment for international freight forwarders

The Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs (MLTM) publicized and enforced the revised enforcement regulations of the Framework Act on the Logistics Policy on April 23, which will help eliminate the inconvenience of international freight forwarders in their business management. Under the revised enforcement regulations, international freight forwarders will be given a warning before being punished with business suspension when violating the Framework Act on the Logistics Policy.

The numbers of currently registered international freight forwarding companies are 2739 companies as of December, 2008

During the revision of regulations, MLTM newly established a regulation of giving a warning before issuing an order of business suspension, set the standard for imposing punishment step by step according to the number of violation and clearly stipulated the extent to which punishment is eased, and so on.

First, international freight forwarder falling short of registration standards will be able to come up to the standards since they will be given a warning before being punished with business suspension.
Second, international freight forwarders have been punished with 60 days of business suspension, and then punished with registration cancellation so far. But under the revised regulations, measures will be taken step by step, giving a warning firstly, 30 days of business suspension, 60 days of business suspension and lastly registration cancellation.

Third, when international freight forwarders are recognized that they have violated the Act through minor carelessness or by mistake and their violation doesn? do consumers any harm, the punishment, that may be imposed, will be eased.

Lastly, so far there has been no cumulative period set for violation and international freight forwarders are largely concerned to be heavily punished if they violate the same regulation again even after a long period of time has passed. But thanks to the revised regulations, they will be imposed punishment step by step only if they violate the same regulation again within one year.

MLTM will continue to improve regulations in order to help logistics companies and international freight forwarding companies, etc. run their business without disruptions.<Korea Shipping Gazette>