Lotte Hi-Mart Loses Lawsuit to Cancel Corrective Order Against Fair Trade Commission

Court: "Fair Trade Commission Sanctions Are Justified"

The court ruled that the corrective order received by Lotte Hi-Mart from the Fair Trade Commission for making dispatched employees sell other companies' products is justified.

Exterior view of Lotte Hi-Mart headquarters located in Daechi-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
[Photo by Lotte Hi-Mart]

On the 12th, the Administrative Division 6-2 of the Seoul High Court (Presiding Judges Wi Gwang-ha, Hong Seong-wook, Hwang Ui-dong) ruled in favor of the Fair Trade Commission in the lawsuit filed by Lotte Hi-Mart seeking to cancel the corrective order.

Earlier, in December 2020, the Fair Trade Commission found that Lotte Hi-Mart violated the Large-scale Distribution Business Act by requiring dispatched agency employees to sell products from other companies, and imposed a corrective order along with a fine of 1 billion KRW. It was revealed that dispatched employees sold other companies' products worth as much as 5.5 trillion KRW, including Cuchen employees selling Cuckoo, Samsung, and LG products.

Lotte Hi-Mart filed a lawsuit to cancel the corrective order and requested a suspension of execution, opposing the Fair Trade Commission's sanctions. The court accepted the suspension of execution request, which is of a civil provisional disposition nature, temporarily suspending the effect of the corrective order until the main lawsuit verdict is delivered.

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