Wonshin The Buy Mall fined 160 million KRW for shifting sales staff costs to suppliers

After Receiving Sales Staff Without Written Agreement, Costs Are Also Passed On

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Wonsin The W Mall, an outlet operator that unfairly received sales staff dispatched from suppliers but passed the costs onto the suppliers, has been sanctioned by the Fair Trade Commission.

The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 11th that it decided to impose a corrective order and a fine of 162 million KRW on Wonsin The W Mall, which operates W-Mall, for unfairly receiving and using sales staff dispatched from multiple suppliers.

Wonsin The W Mall, which primarily operates department store-type outlets, is a large-scale retailer with sales of approximately 152.8 billion KRW as of 2018. It operates a business site (W-Mall) in Gasan-dong, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul.

According to the Fair Trade Commission's investigation, from January 2017 to March 2018, Wonsin The W Mall received a total of 378 employees dispatched from 144 suppliers to work at the Gasan-dong store, and all labor costs were borne by the suppliers.

During this process, it was found that Wonsin The W Mall did not receive voluntary dispatch requests from suppliers that specifically detailed the cost breakdown and calculation basis for the dispatched employees in advance.

It was also revealed that important dispatch conditions such as the employees' working periods and hours, labor cost sharing, and terms were not agreed upon in writing with the suppliers. All of these actions violate the Large-Scale Retail Business Act.

Kwon Soon-guk, head of the Distribution Transaction Division at the Fair Trade Commission, stated, "The Fair Trade Commission will continue to collect difficulties faced by suppliers through various channels such as anonymous reports and strengthen monitoring of chronic unfair trade practices by large-scale retailers."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.