SEOUL, January 19 (AJP) - South Korean financial authorities have imposed a combined 3.97 billion won ($2.9 million) in administrative fines on six firms, including five foreign financial companies, for illegal short selling, officials said Monday.
The Securities and Futures Commission under the Financial Services Commission decided on Oct. 15 to fine Shinhan Asset Management 370.6 million won for violating short-selling rules. Details of the decision were disclosed on the FSC website on Dec. 12.
Shinhan Asset Management was found to have placed a sell order on March 14, 2023, for 5,000 shares of EcoPro that it did not own, with a transaction value of about 1.85 billion won.
Among overseas institutions, Norway-based Pareto Securities received the largest penalty of 2.26 billion won. The firm violated short-selling rules after placing a sell order on Nov. 23, 2022, for 178,879 shares of Samsung Electronics it did not hold, valued at about 10.91 billion won.
Canada’s Alberta Investment Management was fined 546.9 million won, while U.S.-based asset manager Invesco Capital Management was ordered to pay 532.3 million won.
Northern Trust Hong Kong was fined 141.7 million won, and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC Private Limited was fined 120.6 million won.
Authorities said many of the cases stemmed from a sweeping inspection of illegal short selling by global investment banks conducted between November 2023 and March 2025, ahead of the resumption of short selling.
Since short selling fully resumed in March, authorities have operated a real-time monitoring system for short selling.
Short-selling rules have also been a key issue as South Korea seeks inclusion in the Morgan Stanley Capital International developed markets index. After short selling resumed, MSCI upgraded its assessment of short-selling accessibility in South Korea from “minus,” indicating a need for improvement, to “plus.”
* This article, published by Aju Business Daily, was translated by AI and edited by AJP.
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