South Korea has introduced tougher sentencing laws for anyone convicted of leaking or stealing technology information.

The revised law also includes additional evaluation categories for approving mergers and acquisitions of Korean companies by foreign firms to help assess the potential impact of the merger on the country’s security and economy.

Under the Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology Act, sentencing guidelines for leaking information came into force on March 26, while sentences for smuggling details about technologies out of the country will increase from July 1.

The maximum penalty for leaking the country's intellectual property abroad has now been raised from nine years to 15. Anyone found guilty of smuggling designated key technologies out of South Korea will soon face up to 18 years in prison, a three-fold increase.

Possible fines have also increased from a maximum of 1.5 billion won ($1.1 million) to 6.5 billion won ($4.8m) for the country's core technologies, and a maximum of 3 billion won ($2.2bn) for lower-level technologies.

Under the act, "national core technology" refers to technologies that "may have a significant adverse effect on national security and the development of the national economy if divulged abroad, due to their high technological and economic value in domestic and foreign markets or the high growth potential of related industries."

The new guidelines discourage leniency for first-time offenders, while those acting as brokers in a theft will now also be liable to face charges.

In November 2023, South Korea’s National Office of Investigation said that the number of cases where information about technology being developed in the country had been leaked overseas had reached a ten-year high.

In comments reported by the KoreaTimes, an unnamed ministry official said: "The revised law aims to prevent technology theft either by intention or mistake. It's a shield against cases in which foreign entities establish companies here to steal our technologies. It also prevents those unfamiliar with the law from unintentionally leaking the technologies overseas."

Last month, police arrested five Samsung Electronics employees who shared information about the company's latest semiconductor surface cleaning equipment technology with PNC Process System of China.