Corruption in South Korea is moderate compared to most countries in the Asia-Pacific and the broader international community.

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil ...

's 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index scored South Korea at 54 on a scale between 0 (very corrupt) and 100 (least corrupt). When the 180 countries in the Index are ranked by score, South Korea is the 32nd least corrupt country, following the Bahamas, Qatar and Portugal.

Notable cases

President

Park Geun-hye Park Geun-hye (; ; often in English ; born 2 February 1952) is a South Korean politician who served as the 11th president of South Korea from 2013 to 2017, until she was impeached and convicted on related corruption charges. Park was the fi ...

was found guilty in 16 charges, including

abuse of power Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...

and bribery, then she was imprisoned for 25 years. Another former president Lee Myung-bak was also charged with corruption scandals involving major companies in 2018 and he was sentenced 17 years in jail. KOCIS Korea President Park Sejong Econ 03 (11640577615)

KOCIS Korea President Park Sejong Econ 03 (11640577615)

As a result of such scandals, coupled with other incidents, such as the Sewol disaster, a 2015 report released by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) showed that " lmost 70 percent of South Koreans distrust their government, while less than 30 percent of them are confident in the nation's judicial system." This rate is significantly lower than the OECD average, which was 41.8 percent. Despite South Korea's low public confidence rate in 2015, it was at least a step up from the rate in 2007 by 10 percentage points. The

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...

has taken steps to fight corruption, such as the Act on the Protection of Public Interest Whistle-Blowers which protect

whistleblower A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...

s who report public and private corruption as well as foreign bribery. Public services have also been digitalised in order to avoid opportunities for corruption. However, large '' chaebols'' pose significant difficulties as illicit business behaviour is still common among them. Some of the large conglomerates have been involved in

tax evasion Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...

and corruption, and their powerful role in South Korea's economy has made corruption investigation very difficult.

Notable incidents

2008 Grand National Party Convention bribery incident The 2008 Grand National Party Convention is a political scandal in the South Korean politics that exposed higher-level political corruption within the ranks of the Lee Myung-bak government. The connections surrounding the Lee Myung-bak government ...

Anti-corruption agency An anti-corruption agency is a special police agency specialised in fighting political corruption and engaging in general anti-corruption activities. Most are founded by statute, but some have a constitutional status. List See also * * * ...

* BBK stock price manipulation incident *

Daewoo dissolution and corruption scandal The Daewoo dissolution and corruption scandal was a 1999-2006 scandal in South Korea involving the bankruptcy of Daewoo, then-country's second largest company, and a subsequent corruption investigation, involving arrests, escapes and eventual conv ...

* Improper Solicitation and Graft Act * MOFAT Diamond scandal *

2016 South Korean political scandal Sixteen or 16 may refer to: *16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17 *one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016 Films * ''Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film * ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film ...

South Korean illegal surveillance incident The South Korean illegal surveillance incident ( ko, 민간인 불법사찰 사건, or ''illegal civilian surveillance incident'') was alleged to have occurred in 2010 when the Civil Service Ethics Division (공직윤리지원관실) under the Pr ...

* South Korean nuclear scandal * Gwangju Inhwa School * Jeon-gwan ye-u

References

External links

The Republic of Korea Corruption Profile
from the Business Anti-Corruption Portal {{Asia in topic, Corruption in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...