South Korea is tightening its espionage laws to cover all foreign nations—not just North Korea—in order to protect strategic technologies such as semiconductors, displays, batteries, and artificial intelligence. Under the new bill, espionage on behalf of a foreign nation carries a minimum prison sentence of three years.
Prior to this amendment, espionage offenses involving countries other than North Korea could only be prosecuted under trade secret or industrial technology laws, which carried lighter penalties.
This change follows several high-profile cases, including one where five former Samsung employees transferred memory technology to the Chinese company CXMT. Previously, Samsung had also alleged that its OLED technology was stolen by BOE; that dispute was settled out of court last year.
