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Korea Fair Trade Commission’s 2012 Business Plan
On December 15, 2011, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (the “KFTC”) announced the key elements of its 2012 business plan. According to the 2012 business plan, the KFTC’s main goal is to establish a fair market economy that benefits the small and medium-sized enterprises, large conglomerates and consumers altogether. The key points of the KFTC’s 2012 business plan are outlined below.
1. To remedy unfair subcontracting practices such as technology usurpation, the KFTC plans to initiate investigations on three to four manufacturing related industries. Further, with the enactment of the Large-Scale Distribution Act, the KFTC plans to more vigorously investigate the large-scale distributors' unfair business practices in their dealings with suppliers. In this connection, the KFTC plans to conduct an extensive survey of suppliers to uncover any unfair business practices by the large-scale distributors.
2. Signaling its willingness to more closely monitor violation of the MRFTL conducted by market dominant companies including multinational companies, the KFTC plans to focus its attention on the IT industry, including platform businesses, commercial server providers and software developers, as well as pharmaceutical, machinery and chemical industries. For the machinery and chemical industries, the KFTC plans to review the results of the written industry surveys it conducted in 2011 to ascertain, particularly, whether improper agreements were reached to resolve patent disputes. In addition, the KFTC plans to heighten its monitoring of potential cartel activities and other violation of MRFTL in the sectors closely connected to the daily life of consumers, such as finance and general services, and particularly to products whose domestic and overseas price differences are significant whose operating profits are significant.
3. The KFTC plans to contribute portions of the costs of filing private damage claims by consumer groups against the entity investigated by the KFTC following the finding of liability by the KFTC. In addition, the KFTC (i) plans to actively utilize the consent decree system described above and focus on areas where consumer harm is great to ensure prompt and direct relief and (ii) is considering making necessary changes so that consumer groups can also claim for damage (in addition to demanding prohibition of specific conduct) against the entities that were investigated and found liable by the KFTC.
By Sung Eyup Park and Kyu Hyoung Jeon of Kim & Chang
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