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Filibuster fails to foil Commercial Act revision, passes Assembly

Published: 25 Feb. 2026, 20:26

An amendment to the Commercial Act is being passed at the plenary session of the National Assembly in Yeouido, western Seoul on Feb. 25. [YONHAP]

The National Assembly passed a bill mandating comapanies to cancel holdings of their own shares on Wednesday, as the Democratic Party (DP) pushed through a third revision to the Commercial Act.

Lawmakers approved the amendment during a plenary session of the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The bill, part of the DP’s broader push to reform the financial and capital markets structure, requires companies to retire newly purchased treasury shares within one year.

Limited exceptions are permitted, including shares used for employee compensation or employee stock ownership plans. In such cases, the entire board of directors must sign and seal a retention and disposal plan and obtain approval from shareholders at the annual general meeting each year.

Companies subject to foreign investment restrictions under laws such as the Telecommunications Business Act must in principle dispose of treasury shares deemed necessary for regulatory compliance within three years from the law’s enforcement date.

The People Power Party began a filibuster after the bill was placed on the plenary agenda on Tuesday. However, the filibuster ended after 24 hours when the DP and other pro-government aligned parties voted to close debate, and the bill was subsequently put to a vote and passed.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY JEONG HYE-JEONG [[email protected]]