Chapter 1296: Legal Counsel

When people are tired, even just a few dozen seconds of rest can feel particularly satisfying, like a kind of enjoyment. But often things go against one's wishes; the moment the phone rings, you must leave your resting state and enter a tense one.

This is work. Whether you want to or not, you have to answer the phone.

Lee Soo-man and Kim Young-min were agonizing over Zhao Fusheng's true intentions, but Zhao Fusheng didn't have that many thoughts; he had his own matters to attend to recently.

Since he was going to establish a branch company, the issue of legal counsel had to be resolved.

This was no joke. After all, Future Entertainment, as a subsidiary of Future Group in South Korea, would undertake various businesses such as film and television investments. If something went wrong with legal contracts, Zhao Fusheng knew it would be a considerable trouble.

Foreign-related lawsuits, even just the issue of wrangling, were quite intractable for Future Group.

So after much deliberation, he chose the well-known Jinshan Law Firm in Seoul.

Jinshan Law Firm was a very famous law firm in Seoul. Its founder, Jinshan, was a legendary figure in the industry. He graduated from the Police University, later entered the Seoul District Prosecutors' Office, and finally left the prosecutors' office to establish this law firm.

In South Korea, the status of the prosecution is quite high. The South Korean political system implements a separation of powers, consisting of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The prosecution office is an administrative organ under the Ministry of Justice, a relatively independent system. The jurisdictions of each prosecution office do not correspond one-to-one with administrative regions.

South Korea's police, customs, taxation, and three or four other special investigative agencies have investigative powers. However, the South Korean Criminal Procedure Law stipulates that the right to investigate criminal cases and decide on the conclusion of investigations is granted only to prosecutors.

Therefore, when the police and other agencies conduct investigations, they must do so under the direction and supervision of prosecutors. Without a prosecutor's permission, no investigative department can initiate or stop an investigation.

During the investigation, prosecutors can direct the work of judicial police and bear all responsibility for the investigation. Prosecutors have the power to end investigations at any time, and judicial police must promptly submit all evidence and related documents to the prosecutor.

After receiving case reports from the police and other investigative agencies, prosecutors can instruct the police or relevant departments to conduct investigations. After the police or departments complete the investigation according to the prosecutor's instructions, the prosecutor decides whether to prosecute the suspect.

For criminal cases such as murder, robbery, and fraud, prosecutors directly receive reports and accusations. If they deem an investigation necessary, they hand it over to the police and direct the police to conduct the investigation. For cases deemed serious with significant losses, such as official corruption, economic crimes, organized crime, environmental pollution, and judicial personnel engaging in malpractice for personal gain, prosecutors can directly conduct investigations.

This is the prosecutor-led investigation system. The prosecutor's investigative authority extends to all areas of investigation. Therefore, South Korean prosecutors are called the 'King of Criminal Investigation.'

In short, becoming a prosecutor in South Korea means a brilliant professional status and future. The entire process of a case is carried out in the prosecutor's personal name, not in the name of the prosecution office. Before the verdict, the prosecutor can also withdraw or change the charges. Prosecutors independently investigate, judge, and make decisions on cases under their responsibility, and they also bear responsibility themselves. Superiors can only make suggestions on cases but cannot change the prosecutor's decisions.

To investigate corruption cases involving high-ranking government officials, each local prosecution office in South Korea has a special anti-corruption unit called the Special Investigation Department. The Supreme Prosecutors' Office also has a 'Central Investigation Department.' The Central Investigation Department has made great achievements in anti-corruption in South Korean politics, handling numerous major and important cases, the most well-known being the corruption cases of former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo.

Including later cases such as President Roh Moo-hyun's violation of the Political Funds Act during the election and Park Geun-hye's confidante interference scandal, all were handled by the Central Special Investigation Department.

And this lawyer Jinshan once served as the chief prosecutor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office.

Officials of this level in the South Korean legal community enjoy 'former official courtesy.'

The so-called 'former official courtesy' refers to an unwritten rule in the South Korean legal community, where judges, prosecutors, and high-ranking government officials, after retiring, become lawyers or advisors for law firms or large corporations, enjoying treatment equivalent to their tenure in office.

The reason why major South Korean law firms and financial institutions are willing to hire these advisors at high prices is that these retired high officials can still exert influence in their original areas of jurisdiction, obtaining major national projects from government departments or having officials they promoted help solve problems.

Former high officials can even act as a shield to prevent supervision from prosecution, tax, and financial regulatory departments. Some large law firms, in addition to hiring former judges and prosecutors, also hire former military generals and high-ranking police officers as advisors. They have strong lobbying capabilities and are even called the shadow government.

In film and television dramas, lawyers with a 100% win rate are unlikely to appear. To win a lawsuit, one either needs enormous influence or simply does not take on cases they are not sure of winning.

Lawyers and journalists are actually the same. Whether good or bad, journalists should only report, not comment. Because journalists are responsible for reporting news, and the essence of news is the public's right to know. Whether something is right or wrong is the journalist's personal comment, representing only themselves, and should not guide the audience.

A certain female public intellectual journalist later interviewed an academician on the issue of smog, raising a series of questions, saying that non-environmentally friendly industries should be rectified, showing how patriotic and compassionate she was, as if everyone else were fools.

This is probably the habit of elite public intellectuals: raising problems but not thinking about solving them. Or rather, their method of solving problems has always been to talk without considering whether it can be put into practice.

For example, some people keep calling for a halt to the use of coal and switching to natural gas. They probably don't understand the difference between proven reserves of natural gas and commercially viable reserves. Moreover, if coal use is stopped, how to handle related industries and how to resettle workers—journalist Chai wouldn't care. After all, she once said: 'I think China is a populous country with 1.3 billion people. It's not hard to find that many areas in China have underdeveloped education. If you've been to the West, you'll find that even if people there disagree, they don't slander or vilify, because morality and opinions are different. Many domestic netizens like to attack others with moral绑架. Just like when I emigrated, many people said I was not patriotic. Sometimes, the price we pay for telling the truth is to unconditionally accept slander from some people.'

Heh...

...

...

"Lawyer Kim, this is Mr. Zhao Fusheng, Chairman of Huaxia Future Group, and this is Mr. Liang Jingyu, Representative Director of Future Entertainment."

"This is Mr. Jinshan, founder and Representative Director of Jinshan Law Firm."

"Mr. Kim, hello."

"Hello, Chairman Zhao. Hello, two representatives."

After a round of polite greetings, everyone took their seats as host and guest.

"Mr. Kim, our Future Group is a well-known large comprehensive group in northern China. This time, in establishing a branch in South Korea, our chairman admires your firm's strength and hopes that our two companies can cooperate," Liang Jingyu said to Jinshan straightforwardly.

Hearing this, Jinshan smiled. He wasn't surprised; Jinshan Law Firm was well-known, ranking at least in the top five in Seoul, and such business came knocking every day.

"Representative Liang, thank you for your trust in our law firm. I will definitely assign the best lawyers to serve as your company's legal counsel," Jinshan said to Liang Jingyu with a smile.

"No, no, Mr. Kim misunderstands. Our chairman means to invite you, Mr. Kim, to be the legal counsel for Future Entertainment."

Liang Jingyu chuckled and spoke slowly.

This was what Zhao Fusheng had instructed him earlier, and Liang Jingyu naturally followed the boss's orders.

"Me?"

Jinshan was stunned upon hearing this. He looked at Liang Jingyu in surprise, then turned his gaze to Zhao Fusheng. Clearly, he hadn't expected that this wealthy Chinese man would have such an idea.

Zhao Fusheng didn't speak, just sat there calmly. When Jinshan looked at him, he smiled.

"Representative Liang, are you joking?" Jinshan looked at Liang Jingyu and said with a smile.

Obviously, he didn't think Future Entertainment had the capability to invite him as their legal counsel.

"An annual consulting fee of ten million RMB," Liang Jingyu said slowly, looking at Jinshan.

Ten million!

RMB!

Jinshan immediately lost his composure, his breathing quickening.

At the current exchange rate, ten million RMB was exactly 1.8 billion Korean won.

What a joke. Jinshan suddenly felt that all his previous business had been in vain.

Originally, in his impression, the neighboring big country should be poor and backward, but now that impression was completely different.

This was clearly a sugar daddy.

Looking at the young man who still wore a smile, as if he knew nothing and couldn't understand what was being said, Jinshan knew he should start learning Chinese seriously.

This deal, like the price offered by the other party, gave him no reason to refuse.