"Giant Online Platforms, Octopus-like Expansion, and Chaebol's Repeated Unfair Practices... Timely Response to Unfair Practices Needed"

Fair Trade Mediation Agency, Seminar on 'Current Status of Competition Law Responses to Online Platforms'

Kim Hyung-bae, President of the Korea Fair Trade Mediation Agency. (File photo)

[Sejong=Asia Economy Reporter Joo Sang-don] Kim Hyung-bae, President of the Korea Fair Trade Mediation Agency, pointed out on the 28th that "giant platform operators are becoming conglomerates through sprawling expansion and are repeating the unfair practices of past conglomerates."

President Kim made these remarks in his opening address at an academic event co-hosted with Seoul National University Competition Law Center and Korea University ICR Center on the theme of "Current Status of Competition Law Responses to Online Platforms."

He emphasized, "The online platform ecosystem breaks down boundaries between industries, providing businesses with opportunities to reach consumers faster and more easily, and offering consumers more diverse and cheaper purchasing options. However, despite these benefits, the harms caused by the deepening platform ecosystem are increasing."

President Kim believes that new laws are needed to regulate anti-competitive behaviors of online platforms. He explained, "The unfair practices of online platform operators include acts that can be regulated under current competition law, ambiguous acts that are difficult to regulate, and acts that cannot be regulated. In response to new types of anti-competitive behaviors by giant online platform operators, countries such as the United States and the European Union (EU) are either enacting new laws or strengthening existing law enforcement."

In December last year, the EU proposed the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) to introduce unified preemptive regulations at the EU level targeting online platform operators with market dominance. In June, the U.S. Congress introduced five bipartisan platform antitrust package bills to regulate giant online platform companies, followed by a bill in August prohibiting platform operators from forcing in-app payments.

President Kim stated, "In South Korea, calls for regulation against unfair practices by giant platform operators are growing louder. While incentives for innovation must be preserved, timely and proper responses are necessary against unfair practices such as cutting off competition through mergers, eliminating competitors through anti-competitive acts, or harassing suppliers through unfair trade practices."

This academic event is divided into Part 1, "Competition Law Issues of Online Platforms," and Part 2, "Overseas Competition Law Trends on Online Platforms." Professor Choi Nan-seolheon will introduce domestic and international trends and discussions on the expanding influence of platforms in the digital economy and the role and intervention of competition law, presenting recent changes and response directions in competition law regarding platform markets. Following this, Park Jun-young, a research fellow at the Mediation Agency's Fair Trade Research Center, will present an analysis of recent U.S. developments focusing on the five platform package bills, examining the trends in the U.S. executive, legislative, and judicial branches and the expansion of competition law following the introduction of the platform package bills from substantive and procedural/organizational legal perspectives.

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