Prior to the America-centered international financial market meltdown of 2007-2008, the United State of America was at the forefront of both innovation and generation of asset-hacked securities ("ABS"), including commercial mortgage-hacked securities ("CMBS"). in contrast, the Republic of Korea started using asset securitization in earnest as a tool to help Korea recover from its own financial crisis in the late 1990s but no category of ABS, particularly CMBS, ever became a significant share of the Korean economy prior to the recent international meltdown, As the recent financial chaos subsides and the United States, Korea and other countries consider ramping up their CMBS and other ABS markets, they should pay attention to the role that American CM13S played in the meltdown. Additionally, while CMBS markets are stalled, we have time now to analyze basic assumptions and structures used in the United States, so that CMBS can be better financial products wherever they are used in the future, In order to explore elements of CMBS products and their role in the recent market meltdown this article explains some basic elements of ABS and CMBS. Thereafter, we discuss the destructive effect that sub-prime residential mortgage-backed securities ("RMBS") had on financial markets and the devastation brought upon CMBS markets as collateral damage. While CMBS markets were being pummeled by investor weariness of any type of mortgage-backed securities, regulators added a death blow to the market by instituting mark-to-market accounting rules that pro-cyclically drove down book values of CMBS products and simultaneously further eroded investor appetite for CMBS products. In order to avoid similar problems in the future, mark-to-market rules should not be applied as they were in 2007 and 2008. In the wake of the market meltdown, basic assumptions about fungibility and homogeneity of CMBS products and bankruptcy remote entities, as well as the roles of ratings agencies and servicers, have shown weaknesses that are addressed herein. Particularly, the lack of homogeneity of CMBS products, as well as the project-level real properties and mortgages that ultimately collateralize them, demand greater due diligence and less reliance on models and ratings agencies` ratings than other large categories of ABS products. Furthermore, in the years leading up the financial crisis, ratings agencies showed major weakness in their practices of rating CMBS. Modeling weaknesses and interests that align too closely with issuers make it so that CMBS market participants should seriously discount ratings agencies` work, particularly in CMBS. Their role as gatekeepers is questionable and the role of B-piece buyers in serving as gatekeepers should be strengthened. CMBS structures generally require bankruptcy remote entities to serve as both the project-level borrowers and, as with other ABS structures, the issuer special purpose vehicle. The requirements related thereto air explained and the General Growth Properties bankruptcy filing is briefly discussed. While the ultimate result of the General Growth Properties case did not shake the foundation of the bankruptcy-remote SPV borrower model, it did have an immediate impact on cash flows to investors and reinforced the need for CMBS lenders to be more careful in how independent directors are replaced. While B-piece buyers may serve as better gatekeepers than ratings agencies in some regards, B-piece buyers` historically common role as special servicers has often left them open to conflicts of interest, where they can utilize their powers as special servicers to delay or eliminate payments to senior investors. Beyond B-piece buyers, other servicers involved in CMBS products, due to fee arrangements, found themselves underfunded and, consequently, cutting their understaffed operations when they should have been ramping them up during and after the 2007-2008 financial meltdown. This deficiency has left investors without adequate infotmation or protection. In the future, provisions need to be made to ensure that servicers can service CMBS products throughout booms arid busts.