Fair Trade Commission Chairman: "Will Actively Respond if Competition Principles Denied in Construction, Private Education, Telecommunications, and Finance"

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"Investigation into Collusion in Bidding by Supervision Companies for Apartments with Missing Rebar"
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Kang Ki-jung, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, is delivering opening remarks at a press conference marking his first anniversary in office on the 14th at the government complex in Sejong City. Photo by Fair Trade Commission

Han Ki-jung, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, fired a direct shot at the construction, private education, telecommunications, and financial industries. He also issued a stern warning that the commission will actively respond if any actions violating the market economy order are discovered. He cautioned that they are investigating allegations of legal violations in the digital market, including e-commerce, mobility, and lodging platforms.

On the 14th, Chairman Han held a press conference at the Sejong Government Complex press room to mark his first anniversary in office, stating, “We will further focus on law enforcement and policy capabilities in the area of public livelihood,” and emphasized, “We will actively respond to unfair practices such as collusion that deny the principles of competition and aim to maintain or expand the vested interests of existing businesses.”

The industries Chairman Han mentioned in relation to focused responses against unfair practices are construction, private education, telecommunications, and finance. Regarding the construction industry, he said, “We are closely examining whether there was bid-rigging in the process of selecting supervision companies responsible for overseeing issues such as missing rebar and poor apartment construction.” He added, “We are investigating bids for supervision services ordered by the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH), including 13 apartments recently found to have missing rebar, and plan to complete the investigation within this year and begin the review process.”

Regarding the private education sector, he explained, “We are investigating whether academies and online lecture providers have made false or exaggerated advertisements about instructors’ history of creating CSAT questions or university admission results.” He added, “A dedicated task force (TF) has been formed to focus on unfair advertising issues requested for investigation by the Ministry of Education.” He stated that the investigation will be completed within this month.

Chairman Han also mentioned the telecommunications and financial industries, saying, “We are examining whether there are collusion allegations related to sales incentives of the three major telecommunications companies, loan transaction conditions of banks, and participation of banks and securities firms in government bond auctions.” He noted, “We plan to complete the investigation within this year and sequentially handle cases related to government bond auctions.” Following the request made on the 31st of last month for banks and savings banks to correct unfair terms and conditions, they also plan to review the terms of specialized credit finance companies and financial investment firms.

He declared that unfair practices in the digital market will be closely monitored, and institutional foundations will be established to foster a culture of fair transactions and promote innovative competition. The targets of surveillance identified by Chairman Han are e-commerce, mobility, and lodging platforms. He mentioned that investigations are underway into actions such as e-commerce platforms mobilizing employees to write reviews, mobility platforms blocking calls to taxi drivers affiliated with other franchise headquarters without partnership contracts, and lodging platforms restricting free coupon operations by tenant businesses.

Chairman Han continued, “The platform market is being approached with policies that distinguish between the principal-agent sectors and monopolistic sectors,” and added, “An autonomous dispute resolution council will be launched this month to swiftly resolve disputes among delivery platform tenant businesses.” Regarding the criteria for excluding presumed market-dominant businesses, he emphasized, “We intend to raise the threshold from 4 billion won to 8 billion won and will actively work to ensure the related bill passes in the National Assembly.”

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