A long-running turf war between Korea’s top financial regulator and financial watchdog is flaring up again over responsibility for the introduction of single-stock leveraged exchange-traded funds (ETFs), amid steep retail investor losses and heightened market volatility, according to market watchers Thursday. The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) labor union attributed the controversy to the agency’s lack of independence from the Financial Services Commission (FSC), bringing their recurring struggle over policymaking authority and supervisory autonomy back into focus. Leveraged and inverse ETFs tied to Samsung Electronics and SK hynix began trading on the Korean stock market on May 27. The products have since come under fire over heavy investor losses and concerns about their impact on market volatility. Figures submitted by the FSS to the National Assembly showed that retail investors at 10 major domestic brokerages incurred combined losses of 6.31 trillion won ($4.8 billion) between the launch and Aug. 14. Of that amount, 2.32 trillion won represented realized losses, while the