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SEOUL — June 23, 2025 — South Korea’s push to rewrite product-liability rules for sudden unintended acceleration accidents is no longer stalled. The Korea Fair Trade Commission and domestic automakers have told the National Assembly they support the so-called Dohyun Act, which would loosen the burden of proof on families who sue carmakers after suspected sudden acceleration crashes.
The proposed amendment targets one specific, long-criticized requirement in the Product Liability Act. If passed, it would remove the condition that plaintiffs prove a defect fell inside the manufacturer’s “sphere of effective control.” That single phrase has for years been the biggest legal wall facing victims in South Korea, and its removal could fundamentally change how unexpected acceleration cases are handled.
The bill is named for Lee Dohyun, a boy who died in December 2022 in Gangneung, Gangwon Province, in a crash that his family believes was caused by sudden unintended acceleration. The bereaved family is pursuing a lawsuit against the automaker, arguing that the vehicle itself was defective. Their case has become one of the most closely watched product-liability disputes in recent Korean memory.
Under current law, anyone seeking compensation from a carmaker for sudden unintended acceleration must prove three things:
For most plaintiffs, the second requirement is nearly impossible to satisfy. The phrase “sphere of effective control” refers to design, manufacturing, assembly, and quality-control decisions made deep inside corporate processes. Victims and their lawyers have no direct access to engineering documents, software logs, or internal test data. They are effectively being asked to prove a defect they cannot see.
The Dohyun Act was first introduced in the 21st National Assembly. At that time, the auto industry pushed back hard, arguing that changing the rule could blur the line between manufacturing defects and driver error or poor maintenance. The bill stalled and ultimately died without making it through the legislative process.
The political environment in the 22nd National Assembly is different. At a June 16 meeting of the bill-review subcommittee under the National Assembly’s Policy Committee, the Korea Fair Trade Commission, which serves as the lead ministry for this legislation, said it supports a version that strips out the effective-control clause. FTC Vice Chair Nam Dong-il was direct: “We agree with a method that presumes vehicle defects based on proof of the other two factors.”
That statement matters. As the lead regulator overseeing the Product Liability Act, the FTC’s position carries significant weight with lawmakers. Equally important is the change in auto industry attitude. The FTC has told the National Assembly that domestic automakers and industry associations did not strongly oppose an amendment that deletes only the effective-control clause. Earlier this month, on June 2, the FTC held a roundtable with the auto industry to hear concerns and explain the proposal.
The revised bill is deliberately narrow. It does not automatically blame automakers for every sudden acceleration crash, and it does not reverse the overall burden of proof. Instead, it removes one element from the plaintiff’s checklist. If the other two requirements are met, a court would be allowed to presume that a defect was present.
Legal observers say that kind of statutory presumption is significant in South Korea’s civil-law system. Unlike U.S. courts, which often rely on discovery, expert testimony, and doctrines like res ipsa loquitur in product cases, Korean judges generally look for explicit statutory conditions. Removing one of those conditions shifts the practical balance in the courtroom.
The change would be especially meaningful in cases involving electronic components. Modern vehicles depend on complex software, and sudden acceleration allegations often center on throttle-by-wire systems, engine control units, or brake system data. Without the power to pry open an automaker’s technical records, plaintiffs have historically struggled to get past the “effective control” test, regardless of how strong their circumstantial evidence was.
Another contested part of the bill is a proposed document production order. Victims’ advocates want courts to be able to force automakers to hand over black-box data, event data recorder readouts, engine control unit files, and other engineering records. Automakers have resisted broad access to those materials, citing trade secrets and cost.
The FTC says it is willing to accept a document production order system if the law includes a confidentiality obligation. In practical terms, that could mean protective orders similar to those used in U.S. product-liability litigation, where sensitive records are shared with attorneys and experts but not made public. Lawmakers are expected to keep reviewing this issue in the next subcommittee session.
The subcommittee has not announced the date for its next session. Once the subcommittee finishes its review, the bill would move to the full Policy Committee and then to a floor vote in the National Assembly. No vote is guaranteed, but the combination of FTC support and industry acquiescence gives the Dohyun Act a clearer path than it had in the previous assembly.
For U.S. readers, the Korean debate echoes the unintended acceleration cases that confronted American carmakers over the past decade. In the United States, those disputes often revolved around data, expert witnesses, and whether electronic systems could fail without leaving fault codes. South Korea is taking a different route: adding a statutory presumption so victims are not forced to reverse-engineer proprietary systems on their own.
South Korea is not a market that automakers can ignore. If the Dohyun Act becomes law, it could ripple beyond Korean borders. Global manufacturers selling in Korea would face a more plaintiff-friendly legal environment for sudden acceleration claims, and legal teams elsewhere will watch how Korean courts apply the new presumption.
The bill still has hurdles, and the details of the confidentiality clause for document production will be crucial. Yet the fact that both the FTC and the auto industry have effectively signed off on removing the effective-control requirement is a notable turning point. For the family behind Lee Dohyun’s case, and for many suspected sudden acceleration victims, the legal room to argue their claims is about to get wider.
