Fair Trade Commission: "Korea Abbott and Medtronic Korea Provided Overseas Conferences and Tourism to Doctors... Corrective Orders and Fines Issued"

[Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 18th that it has decided to impose corrective orders and a fine of 16 million KRW on Korea Abbott and Medtronic Korea for unfair rebate practices. These companies improperly supported doctors in the cardiovascular field to attend overseas academic conferences and provided tourism during education and training programs.

According to the Fair Trade Commission, Korea Abbott and Medtronic Korea used overseas conference support to induce doctors to use their stents. Specifically, they mentioned the use of overseas academic conference participation support as a sales promotion strategy for doctors whose usage of their products had decreased, and actively planned conference support while managing sales status.

Korea Abbott violated regulations by issuing invitation letters to 21 doctors at 21 hospitals through prior contact with its Hong Kong branch or overseas academic conferences, despite providing funds through the association according to the rules from May 2014 to April 2018, making it impossible to specify the support recipients.

In the process, they specially requested the Hong Kong branch to issue invitation letters to doctors who submitted presentation cases past the deadline, repeatedly urged the branch and academic conferences to issue invitation letters in line with domestic registration periods. Among the 21 doctors who received invitation letters, 14 attended the conferences using the letters and received participation support through the association. During this period, Korea Abbott supported a total of 16.99 million KRW in expenses for medical personnel participating in two academic conferences.

Medtronic Korea internally selected doctors to attend overseas conferences from August 2017 to June 2019 and offered participation support to those doctors. They notified the overseas conferences of the list and roles of 36 doctors from 34 hospitals who responded, so that invitation letters could be issued to those doctors.

Additionally, to directly deliver invitation letters to doctors, they requested the conference to issue the letters to themselves and then provided them to the doctors. Among the doctors who received invitation letters, 23 actually attended the conferences using the letters and received overseas conference participation support through the association. Medtronic Korea supported a total of 27.72 million KRW in expenses for medical personnel participating in two academic conferences during this period.

Accordingly, the Fair Trade Commission imposed corrective orders (future conduct prohibition orders) and a fine (16 million KRW) on Korea Abbott, and corrective orders (future conduct prohibition orders) on Medtronic Korea.

A Fair Trade Commission official stated, "This action is significant in that it detected indirect rebate practices where businesses directly supported specific doctors in violation of fair competition regulations," and added, "The Fair Trade Commission plans to continuously strengthen monitoring of acts that undermine competitive order under the pretext of overseas conference and education/training support across the medical device market, including the stent market."

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