The current Act prescribes that where a business operator has been punished by business suspension or revocation of the business license or registration, etc., for selling, or processing or cooking for the purpose of sale, foods that contain poisonous or harmful substances or that are contaminated with microbes causing diseases, he/she shall be imposed with penalty surcharges equivalent to the retail prices of the relevant foods, etc. sold.

However, such penalties have not been effective enough to prevent violations from occurring, threatening public food safety.

Accordingly, the Amendment increases the amount of penalty surcharges from an amount equivalent to the retail prices of the harmful foods, etc., sold (current) to an amount at least 2 times and up to 5 times the sales, thereby aiming to increase the effectiveness of punishment.

The current Act also stipulates that penalty surcharges and fines for illegal acts such as the sale of harmful foods shall be imposed based on retail prices. However, it is unclear as to whether retail prices refer to the end consumer prices, and such amount does not account for sales volume, which is included in the actual computation process for fines. Accordingly, the Amendment changes the basis from retail prices to sales, which reflects the final selling price and sales volume (Article 83, paragraphs 1 and 2; Article 93, paragraph 3; and Article 94, paragraph 3).

Increase the amount of penalty surcharges from an amount equivalent to the retail prices of the harmful foods, etc., sold (current) to an amount at least 2 times and up to 5 times the sales (Article 83)