• International Area Studies Review
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.79-105
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• 2010

This paper investigates empirically the impact of foreign investors on a firm's dividend and investment decision making in Korean stock market. Empirical results using the sample firms in non-financial firms listed in Korean stock market whose settlement month are December, we find that foreign investors who declared participation in management didn't exert significant impact on dividend increase. In the case of investment, foreign investors exerts significant impact on R&D investments. Using Hausman-Taylor Instrumental Variable method, we controlled endogeneity problem related with foreign ownership and dividend and investment policy. The contribution of this paper is that the purpose of foreign investors whether or not participate in management is the most critical point and the impacts of foreign investors on dividends and investment are different whether they participate in management or not.

• International Area Studies Review
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.367-389
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• 2011

This paper examines what factors contribute to the entry of foreign investors to Chinese commercial banks from 1996 to 2008. Empirical results show that using survival analysis, size, liquidity ratio and non-interest incomes are important to foreign investors. This indicates that as Chinese banking system opened, foreign investors invest in bigger but financially weak banks. For Joint-Stock commercial banks, foreign investors invest in banks whose asset qualities and non-interest incomes are low. But for City commercial banks, foreign investors invest in banks that are big but have low liquidity ratios. This results indicate that because City commercial banks operate in only one city, foreign investors require minimum bank size to operate in that city.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.38
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• pp.181-226
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• 2008

The purpose of this paper is to describe the settling procedures of the investor-state disputes in the FTA Investment Chapter, and to research on the international arbitration system for the settlement of the investor-state disputes under the ICSID Convention and UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The UNCTAD reports that the cumulative number of arbitration cases for the investor-state dispute settlement is 290 cases by March 2008. 182 cases of them have been brought before the ICSID, and 80 cases of them have been submitted under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The ICSID reports that the cumulative 263 cases of investor-state dispute settlement have been brought before the ICSID by March 2008. 136 cases of them have been concluded, but 127 cases of them have been pending up to now. The Chapter 11 Section B of the Korea-U.S. FTA provides for the Investor_State Dispute Settlement. Under the provisions of Section B, the claimant may submit to arbitration a claim that the respondent has breached and obligation under Section A, an investment authorization or an investment agreement and that the claimant has incurred loss or damage by reason of that breach. Provided that six months have elapsed since the events giving rise to the claim, a claimant may submit a claim referred to under the ICSID Convention and the ICSID Rules of Procedure for Arbitration Proceedings; under the ICSID Additional Facility Rules; or under the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules. The ICSID Convention provides for the jurisdiction of the ICSID(Chapter 2), arbitration(Chapter 3), and replacement and disqualification of arbitrators(Chapter 5) as follows. The jurisdiction of the ICSID shall extend to any legal dispute arising directly out of an investment, between a Contracting State and a national of another Contracting State, which the parties to the dispute consent in writing to submit to the ICSID. Any Contracting State or any national of a Contracting State wishing to institute arbitration proceedings shall address a request to that effect in writing to the Secretary General who shall send a copy of the request to the other party. The tribunal shall consist of a sole arbitrator or any uneven number of arbitrators appointed as the parties shall agree. The tribunal shall be the judge of its own competence. The tribunal shall decide a dispute in accordance with such rules of law as may be agreed by the parties. Any arbitration proceeding shall be conducted in accordance with the provisions of the Convention Section 3 and in accordance with the Arbitration Rules in effect on the date on which the parties consented to arbitration. The award of the tribunal shall be in writing and shall be signed by members of the tribunal who voted for it. The award shall deal with every question submitted to the tribunal, and shall state the reason upon which it is based. Either party may request annulment of the award by an application in writing addressed to the Secretary General on one or more of the grounds under Article 52 of the ICSID Convention. The award shall be binding on the parties and shall not be subject to any appeal or to any other remedy except those provided for in this Convention. Each Contracting State shall recognize an award rendered pursuant to this convention as binding and enforce the pecuniary obligations imposed by that award within its territories as if it were a final judgment of a court in that State. In conclusion, there may be some issues on the international arbitration for the settlement of the investor-state disputes: for example, abuse of litigation, lack of an appeals process, and problem of transparency. Therefore, there have been active discussions to address such issues by the ICSID and UNCITRAL up to now.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.127-147
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• 2013

Korea is, after China, the Asian country with the largest number of concluded investment treaties. One of the protections that Korean investment treaties frequently afford to foreign investors and their investment is the so-called "umbrella clause," which requires the host state of the investment to observe the commitments that it has undertaken toward the foreign investor or its investment. This is a potentially very powerful protection. Umbrella clauses, however, have proven to be amongst the most controversial provisions in investment treaties, giving rise to diverging interpretations by tribunals and commentators that are still not reconciled today.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.187-213
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• 2012

The purpose of this article is to examine Fair and Equitable Treatment in International Investment Agreements. Most BITs and other investment treaties provide for FET of foreign investments. Today, this concept is the most frequently invoked standard in investment disputes. It is also the standard with the highest practical relevance: a majority of successful claims pursued in international arbitration are based on a violation of the FET standard. The concept of FET is not new but has appeared in international documents for some time. Some of these documents were nonbinding others entered into force as multilateral or bilateral treaties. Considerable debate has surrounded the question of whether the FET standard merely reflects the internationalminimum standard, as contained in customary international law, or offers an autonomous standard that is additional to general international law. As a matter of textual interpretation, it seems implausible that a treaty would refer to a well-known concept like the "minimum standard of treatment in customary international law" by using the expression "fair and equitable treatment." Broad definitions or descriptions are not the only way to gauge the meaning of an elusive concept such as FET. Another method is to identify typical factual situations to which this principle has been applied. An examination of the practice of tribunals demonstrates that several principles can be identified that are embraced by the standard of fair and equitable treatment. Some of the cases discussed clearly speak to the central roles of transparency, stability, and the investor's legitimate expectations in the current understanding of the FET standard. Other contexts in which the standard has been applied concern compliance with contractual obligations, procedural propriety and due process, action in good faith, and freedom from coercion and harassment. In short, meeting the investor's central legitimate concern of legal consistency, stability, and predictability remains a major, but not the only, ingredient of an investment-friendly climate in which the host state in turn can reasonably expect to attract foreign investment.

• International Commerce and Information Review
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.69-93
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• 2015

Developing countries including poor countries cannot accumulate enough domestic saving and government budget for their industrialization. They need to finance the capital for development from abroad sources; foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assistance (ODA). The developing countries can improve their business climate for more ODA. This paper examines whether ODA improve the business climate of developing countries. In this paper, the business climate are measured by the starting business scores and the scores of credit and protecting investor in Doing Business project of World Bank. According to the empirical result, ODA has significant effect on the starting business scores for low and lower middle income countries, but insignificant effect for upper middle countries. In the case of the scores of credit and protecting investor, ODA has significant effect only for lower middle income countries.

• Journal of Arbitration Studies
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• v.24 no.2
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• pp.33-52
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• 2014

Although climate change is a global scale question, some concerns have been raised that principles of investment arbitration may not adequately address the domestic implementation of climate change measures. A recent ICSID investment arbitration of Vattenfall v. Germany with regard to the investor's alleged damages from the phase-out of nuclear plants is a salient climate change case. The 2005 Kyoto Protocol was made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and it provides a number of flexible mechanisms such as Joint Implementation (JI) and Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol allows dispute settlement through investor-state arbitration. Any initiation of stricter emission standards can violate the prohibition on expropriations in investment agreements, regardless of the measures created to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The effect-based expropriation doctrine can charge changes to existing emission standards as interference with the use of property that goes against the legitimate expectation of a foreign investor. In regulatory chill, threat of investor claims against the host state may preclude the strengthening of climate change measures. Stabilization clauses also have a freezing effect on the hosting state's regulation and a new law applicable to the investment. In the fair and equitable standard, basic expectations of investors when entering into earlier carbon-intensive operations can be affected by a regulation seeking to change into a low-carbon approach. As seen in the Methanex tribunal, a non-discriminatory and public purpose of environmental protection measures should be considered as non-expropriation in the arbitral tribunal unless its decision would intentionally impede a foreign investor's investment.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.39 no.1
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• pp.17-21
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• 2012

The purpose of this study is to review the laws on foreign investment and the changed licensing procedures in Laos and to provide the data for basic understanding of foreign forestation investment in Laos. The conclusions are as follows. The Laos government has been consistently trying to promote foreign investment. In particular, in 2004, the "Law on the Promotion of Foreign Investment" was legislated. In 2009, the Foreign Investment Promotion Act and the Domestic Investment Promotion Act to incorporate the principles of the "Law on Investment Promotion" were enacted. In Laos, the country's land is owned by the nation's community and maintained by the government. Therefore, through the procedures for registration of land, land can be conceded or leased. The ways to invest are joint ventures (where at least 10% of the total capital investment has to be made), foreign sole investment (where the investor must have a minimum capital of $100,000 or more), joint venture agreement and etc. Lastly, the forestation licensing procedures in Laos are carried out in the following order: site selection, business investments feasibility studies, environmental and social impact assessment, forestry permit application.

• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.23 no.7
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• pp.147-155
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• 2019

Purpose - As the U.S.-China trade war has become considerably worse, the Chinese government is considering applying non-tariff barriers to trade, especially local contents rule. The main purpose of this research is to check whether it is suitable for Korean investors to invest in the current Chinese capital market. Design/methodology - In order to check the stability of the recent Chinese capital market, we investigated the behavior of foreign equity investment (including Korean equity investment) in the Chinese capital market after China announced the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect (SH-HK Connect). In this paper, we researched whether international portfolio investment would or would not contribute to an increase the volatility of an emerging market's stock market (Chinese capital market) when foreign investors make investment decisions based on the objective of short-term gains by rushing into countries whose markets are booming and fleeing from countries whose markets are falling. Findings - The empirical results indicate that foreign investors show strong, negative feedback trading behavior with regard to the stock index of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), and when the performance of foreign investors in the Chinese stock market was fairly good. Also, we found evidence that the behavior of foreign investors significantly decreased volatility in SSE stock returns. Consequently, the SH-HK Connect brought on a win-win effect for both the Chinese capital market and foreign investors. Originality/value - It appeared that the Chinese capital market was very suitable for Korean investors after the China's declaration of the SH-HK Connect. However, the win-win effect was brought on by the Chinese government's aggressive capital control but the capital controls could possibly cause financial turmoil in the Chinese capital market. Therefore, Chinese reform in industrial structure and the financial sector should keep pace with suitable capital control policies.

• THE INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE & LAW REVIEW
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• v.55
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• pp.185-208
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• 2012

Before and after the Capital Market Integration Act in 2007 is implemented in South Korea, many of small-and mid sized exporting companies in South Korea has been bankrupted or filed for lawsuit claiming mis-selling(KIKO) by the banks. The basic economic structure of KIKO in Korea are part of a business model based on the use or misuse of exotic derivatives whose results are anything but imaginary. 571 mid sized exporting companies have been damaged about $28 billion. KIKO is a currency option product that sells foreign currencies at higher foreign exchange rate when the rate moves within a certain range, but sells foreign currencies at two or three times lower rate than the market price when the rate exceeds the designated upper limit. KIKO, Therefore, is hard to know whether the non financial firms intended to hedge against further strengthening of their currency or merely to speculate. It is also hard to know how thoroughly they understood the risk-return profile of these transactions. It is similarly hard to ascertain whether the derivatives dealers offering these transactions were meeting the demands of their clients or taking advantage of them. These exotic derivatives were inappropriate for either hedging or speculating, and no knowledgeable investor would be likely to enter into these contracts intentionally.