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Newsletter | February 2016, Issue 1
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ENVIRONMENT
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Environment Ministry Issues New Administrative Regulations to Guide the Disclosure of Information on Chemical Substance
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Effective December 31, 2015, Korea’s Ministry of Environment (the “MOE”) promulgated the "Regulations on the Management of Chemical Substance Investigation Results and Information Disclosure System" (the “Management Regulations”).
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The Management Regulations provide the MOE with specific grounds to publicly disclose information on chemical substances of the companies handling these substances on the MOE website. The information is gathered from the submissions the MOE receives in the course of its statistical research on chemical substances (the “Statistical Research”).
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Significance:
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This represents the first instance in which a Korean government body will make an online disclosure of information on companies’ chemical substances.
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It should also be noted that this coincides with the growing interest in information disclosure of companies’ chemical substances. This is evidenced by the demand from labor associations and NGOs for the MOE’s strict review of data protection requests made by companies. Among other reasons, labor associations and NGOs believe that chemical information should be disclosed to protect the public’s health.
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Our view & helpful tips:
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Since disclosure of trade secrets may cause irreparable harm to the owner of those trade secrets, companies that have submitted chemical substance data to the MOE may wish to first, carefully consider requesting for data protection, and if so, to make a timely request prior to the deadline. Doing so would help prevent any unintended disclosure of trade secrets related to the chemical substance data.
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In particular, the Management Regulations provide that a request for data protection must be made by no later than February 29, 2016 (the “Request Deadline”).
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If a company fails to submit a data protection request by the Request Deadline, the company will not only lose the opportunity to obtain a decision to have its chemical substance information undisclosed by the MOE’s data protection review committee, but also, the company will have limited opportunity to bring an administrative action against the MOE’s decision to disclose its chemical substance information down the road.
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In making a data protection request to the MOE:
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It is important to prepare the supporting materials to ensure the materials address each of the following elements of trade secret:
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Secrecy of the information;
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Competitive or economic advantage conferred on the owner by the information; and
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Reasonable efforts by the owner to maintain secrecy of the information.
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To ensure a successful outcome on the data protection request, it will also be necessary to prepare the supporting materials in as thorough a manner as possible.
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Back to Main Page
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If you have any questions regarding this article, please contact below:
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