Korea does not mandate functional separation for operators with significant market power (SMP) in the telecom market. However, accounting separation is required in certain cases: According to the Telecommunications Business Act, accounting is mandated for facilities-based telecommunications business operators who possess telecommunication service equipment and whose telecommunications service turnover of the preceding year exceeds 30 billion won (approx. 22.5 million USD), and for facilities-based telecommunications business operators who do not possess telecommunication service equipment and whose telecommunications service turnover of the preceding year exceeds 80 billion won (approx. 60.2 million USD).

Korea has appended the World Trade Organization (WTO) Telecom Reference Paper to its schedule of commitments.

It is reported that the Korea Communications Commission, the executive authority for the supervision and administration of services in the telecommunications sector, is independent from the government in the decision-making process.

Under Art. 18, the Telecommunications Business Act 2010, foreign investors must obtain authorisation for acquisitions or mergers of facilities-based telecommunications services providers.

The Electronic Financial Supervisory Regulations mandate that financial services using cloud services for credit information and unique identification details (such as resident registration numbers, driver’s licence numbers, passport numbers, and alien registration numbers) must process this data locally (Art. 14.2). Financial companies and electronic financial business operators are required to use cloud systems located in Korea to process personal credit information and unique identification information. This provision was inserted as part of an amendment in December of 2018.

In order to provide Internet multimedia broadcasting services, approval of the Broadcasting and the Communication Committee is required under the Internet Multimedia Broadcasting Business Act. This regime under Art. 4 has been in place since 2008.

Per Art. 5 of the Act on the Protection, Use, Etc. of Location Information, any person who intends to engage in location information business shall obtain permission from the Korea Communications Commission. Even if permitted to do such business, location information providers or location-based service providers cannot collect the location information of individuals without the individual's consent under Art. 18. These restrictions have been in place since 2005.
It is reported that, although a supplier may export location information once acquiring a permit, Korea has never approved such a permit despite numerous applications by foreign suppliers over the past decade.

Commercial presence is not required to provide cross-border services under the Commercial Act and the Enforcement Decree of Foreign Exchange Transactions Act. However, it is reported that "Korea prohibits foreign satellite service providers from selling services (e.g., transmission capacity) directly to end-users without going through a company established in Korea. Given existing investment restrictions, this prohibition significantly restricts the ability of foreign satellite service suppliers to compete in the Korean market".

Korea is a signatory of the 1996 World Trade Organization (WTO) Information Technology Agreement (ITA) nor the 2015 expansion (ITA II).

The Act on Contracts to Which the State is a Party excludes, under Art. 4, international bidding for certain public procurement tenders in cases where:
- the procurement is for goods or services required for producing other goods or services intended for sale or resale;
- the products are manufactured by SMEs and purchased in accordance with the Act on Facilitation of Purchase of Small and Medium Enterprise-Manufactured Products and Support for Development of their Markets (Act on SMEs);
- a Presidential Decree prohibits such bidding in line with the Government Procurement Agreement.
Similarly, under Art. 5 of the Act on Contracts to Which a Local Government is a Party, international bidding for local government procurement is regulated in the same way. It is reported that the Act on Facilitation of Purchase of Small and Medium Enterprise-Manufactured Products, which governs procurement under these frameworks, classifies foreign-invested enterprises as "large" companies solely because they are foreign or multinational. As a result, such "large" foreign companies can only participate in projects exceeding USD 220,000.

According to Art. 48 of the Software Industry Promotion Act, participation in government-led software procurement is limited to SMEs. The Act allows the participation of "large" companies in exceptional circumstances. It is reported that this has effectively limited certain bids on software procurement, leaving out multinational firms.

Under Art. 69 of the Electronic Government Act, enacted in 2001, and Cryptographic Module Testing and Validation Guidelines (Guidelines), promulgated in 2004, the National Intelligence Service (NIS) operates the Korea Cryptographic Module Validation Program (KCMVP). KCMVP validates that software, network (such as VPN and SW USB series), and hardware equipment that deals with non-confidential yet important information comply with the Cryptographic Module Validation Standards, which were amended in 2015. Appropriate encryption standards are developed in Korea, such as ARIA, SEED, LEA, and Hight. It is reported that the lack of recognition of other international encryption standards constitutes a barrier for foreign suppliers.
Under the Guidelines, suppliers of software, networks (such as VPN and SW USB series), and hardware equipment that deals with non-confidential yet important information must also submit the source code of their products to pass the Cryptographic Module Validation Process. It is reported that source code could potentially be required as part of common criteria certification administered by the IT Security Certification Center, a requirement for public procurement of cloud computing services.

The Enforcement Decree of the Act on Contracts to Which the State is a Party, which was promulgated in 1995, provides some situations where a competitive bidding process is limited or does not apply. In light of factors such as the purpose, characteristics, and scale of the procurement contract, the government may restrict the participation of potential bidders (Art. 21), select certain bidders to engage in further bidding (Art. 23) or execute an at-will contract (Art. 26).
This is despite Since the Act on Contracts to which the State is a Party, under Art. 5, has prohibited "any special term or condition, discriminative against nationals of contracting states to the Agreement on Government Procurement and goods produced or services provided by such States and in favour of nationals of the Republic of Korea and goods produced or services provided from the Republic of Korea, to international tendering procedures."
The Act on Contracts to Which a Local Government is a Party, under Article 6, has applied the same principle since 2005. Per Art. 12, the contracting agency may not restrict the participation of bidders who have gone through a competitive bidding process.

As of January 2021, pursuant to Art. 4 of the National Intelligence Service Korea Act (introduced by the amendment - Act No. 11104 - of 2011) and Art. 56 of the Electronic Government Act (introduced by the amendment - Act No. 10012 - of 2010), the National Intelligence Service (NIS) applies the Security Verification Scheme to network equipment and cyber-security software imported for government procurement. Generally, suppliers may satisfy this scheme in two ways: First, cyber-security software such as firewalls and intrusion prevention systems are certified at a Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) accredited lab outside of Korea. However, the Common Criteria (CC) certification may not be sufficient for two reasons. First, NIS may substitute the CC certification with other certification mechanisms that were internally developed (e.g., GS Certification). Second, NIS may reject a CC certification when it deems that the certification does not cover particular functions of the product that the government entity needs.
Second, network equipment must undergo a security function test. The equipment that has already passed this test may come in. NIS has recently required some of the cyber-security software that had been subject to the CCRA scheme to pass a security test report conducted by national test agencies. This software includes a software-based security USB (since January 2020), virtualisation product (January 2020), host data leakage prevention product (January 2021), network data leakage prevention product (January 2021), and inter-network data transmission product (January 2022).
There have been reported concerns, starting in 2014, over the additional verification requirement for network equipment, including equipment products that are "not normally considered as 'security' products, such as routers, switches, and IP-PBXs." It is also reported that the NIS has applied the verification scheme "in a non-transparent fashion."