South Korea's Financial Supervisory Service will wrap up this week an inspection it has been conducting into Mirae Asset Securities' subscription process for SpaceX initial public offering shares.

Financial Supervisory Service Governor Lee Chan-jin (이찬진) made the remarks on Sunday at a National Assembly Political Affairs Committee audit, responding to criticism that the watchdog's inspection of Mirae Asset Securities was excessively coercive.

Shin Dong-wook (신동욱), a lawmaker from the People Power Party, questioned the appropriateness of the inspection methods based on information he said he received from sources including a securities firm labour union.

Shin said there had been a tip-off that the watchdog, while conducting an inspection related to the SpaceX offering since June, summoned about 150 staff from regional branches to the Seoul headquarters for questioning and demanded call records and KakaoTalk data.

He also cited a case in which an employee working in Jeju travelled to Seoul, but the actual questioning ended in about 10 minutes. He said it was a claim he raised based on tip-offs he had received from labour unions and other sources.

Shin said internal training materials at the watchdog stipulate it should properly use document-based inspections to reduce the inspection burden on financial companies and prevent unfair infringement of executives' and employees' rights. He said recent inspection methods may have become excessively tough.

"In the case of SpaceX IPO shares, they summoned 150 regional employees to the headquarters for questioning," he said. "Isn't that a kind of abuse of power?" he asked.

Lee said he was aware of the issues raised by the Mirae Asset Securities union.

"I also saw the union's handouts," Lee said. "In some cases I have checked the facts, and in some cases there are various exaggerations, but I don't think it would be appropriate to go into specifics here," he said.

He added that the inspection of Mirae Asset Securities was expected to be completed by this Thursday.

On the reasons the inspection had been prolonged, he cited that insufficient records remained in the process of registering professional investors.

"Originally, the process of registering professional investors should be done through a work PC, but instead everything was done on mobile in a way that left no data," Lee said. "Because of this, it was delayed a lot and it became a situation where individual investigations were needed," he said.

The watchdog is looking into Mirae Asset Securities' process of registering individual and corporate clients as professional investors and its investment solicitation process ahead of subscriptions for SpaceX IPO shares.

The Mirae Asset Securities union has previously raised concerns about inspection methods, saying the watchdog summoned about 150 staff from branches nationwide to Seoul, causing disruption to work.

Lee also said the watchdog would manage conduct during the inspection process that could potentially infringe on the rights of executives and employees.

"We will continue to strictly manage parts that could be considered potential abuse of power," he said. He added that the responsible department was providing relevant training and that it would take appropriate disciplinary measures if problems arise.

As the watchdog's inspection of Mirae Asset Securities enters its final stage, attention is expected to focus on whether there were actual illegalities in the professional investor registration and investment solicitation procedures during the SpaceX subscription process, and what follow-up actions will be taken depending on the inspection results.