Research Report
A Legal Study on Regulatory Alerts as an Alternative Methodology of Regulation
Ⅰ. Backgrounds and Purposes
▶ Ministry of SMEs and Startups(MSS) in the Republic of Korea declared that it would build up the Office of Regulatory Alerts.
○ MSS defines Regulatory Alerts as a system which prevents burdensome regulations through participations of SMEs and stakeholder.
- The Office of Regulatory Alerts is planned to analyze the proposed rules and to send a concrete notice of the impact of regulations to selected groups of interested parties.
○ This study aims to look over the roles and functions of Regulatory Alerts and put forward some suggestions in the context of ex-ante control of norms.
- It compares traditional and alternative rule-making procedures and processes of the Republic of Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom and European Union.
Ⅱ. Major Content
▶ Traditionally, administrative self-control on delegated rule-making contains three principal axes of Regulatory Impact Assessment, Notice-and-Comment, and Regulatory Review.
○ (U.S.) Traditional methodologies of self-control on rules and regulations are constructed by the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946, the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, the Negotiated Rulemaking Act of 1990, Executive Order 12866 of 1993, and etc.
- Office of Advocacy in Small Business Administration seems to promote Regulatory Alerts as an alternative initiative of regulatory reform.
○ (UK) The United Kingdom is evaluated to have made good cultures of open consultations on regulation since Statutory Instrument Act 1946.
- The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills reported that it built a database of thousands of SMEs to enhance the participations of small firms.
▶ The initiative of Regulatory Alerts in Korean government might be understood that the generally applicable abstract rules can be noticed individually in the more concrete forms with the help of Information Technology.
○ The Office of Regulatory Alerts analyzes the regulatory impact assessment of proposed regulations and informs the interested parties who agreed for involvement of the procedure of notice-and-comments.
- Ministry of SMEs and Startups considers the use of artificial intelligence(AI) in analyzing and informing.
○ Furthermore, this study suggests that the Office of Regulatory Alerts shall take the role of SMEs’ advocate in the process of regulatory review by Regulatory Reform Committee.
Ⅲ. Expected Effects
▶ The legal study on regulatory alerts might be used as a reference for making a blueprint of better regulation agenda in Korean government.
○ The suggestions of this report could be considered in designing the ex-ante control of norms.