If people can buy a year’s supply of products from Costco from a single visit, the U.S. retail giant must have seen a year’s supply of inspectors in just one day. Last Wednesday and this past Sunday, the Seoul city government sent dozens of inspectors to Costco Wholesale’s warehouses in Seoul to conduct thorough investigations into virtually all activities of the retailer in Seoul.

Wednesday’s inspection is said to have detected as many as 41 violations of a plethora of city regulations: a construction ordinance, fire regulation, parking regulation, sanitary regulation, waste recycling regulation, broken guiding lights, you name it. This is a heavy-handed response from the local government to the U.S. membership warehouse club’s failure to abide by the Seoul city ordinance requiring the closure of large supermarkets every other Sunday. The city government vows more dragnet searches if the retailer continues to remain in violation.

The Sunday ordinance has received much attention for a couple of years now, and the debates about the wisdom of the measure seem to be still going on. In any event, the ordinance has been in force and merchants operating in Seoul are bound by it: Violators are subject to fines and other administrative sanctions. Costco also does not dispute its violation and accepts payment of associated fines, as stipulated.

Costco’s knowing violation should be condemned and penalties have to be applied. But mobilizing all sorts of regulatory authority to give the retailer a hard time, in such a thinly veiled emotional response, is hardly a proper course of action. It only tarnishes the image of the city government and raise concerns over other (fully legitimate) regulatory measures.

Seoul city underscores that it has the legal authority to conduct these administrative inspections. That is true and there is no question about that. What is at issue here, however, is not the existence of the regulatory authority, but the way it is exercised under the circumstances. Whatever the underlying facts, a foreign corporation having a sour relationship with a government, and the government singling out the corporation with a barrage of administrative examinations is a familiar plot of the soap operas of various international disputes.

What is further noteworthy here is the fact that the ordinance has already been found to be in violation of the enabling statute. In a challenge brought by other large supermarkets against the ordinance in June, the Seoul Administrative Court ruled the ordinance against the law, and Seoul city is planning to issue an amended ordinance as early as November. These prevailing large stores are now able to open all week long. But not Costco, because it did not participate in the June litigation and cannot enjoy the benefits from the lawsuit. So goes the rationale of the Seoul city government.

This stance is entirely correct ― technically. But, one would ask, if the ordinance has already been found problematic and thus other large supermarkets are all exempt from it, what is the point of pursuing one company so relentlessly? Is it because the company did not participate in the original lawsuit against the city government? Or, perhaps, is it because this is the only company subject to the present ordinance before the amendment? It does beg the questions of why there have been inspection, and why now?

Criticism is thus raised that there is a strong appearance of the investigation of the Seoul city government being an emotional, retaliatory response. Measures consistent with domestic laws and regulations without any specific “targeting” intent are always permitted and will continue to be so in any circumstances. However, a retaliatory measure, if any, directed at a specific entity would be the last thing that a local government should consider under the current environment of a tightly knit web of treaties and agreements.

Absent a persuasive argument for why this type of action is justified, the long-term burden would outweigh any short-term catharsis. Enough is enough. Time to calm down. 

By Lee Jae-min

Lee Jae-min is a professor of law at the School of Law, Hanyang University, in Seoul. Formerly he practiced law as an associate attorney with Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP. ― Ed.