[Law Firm Power Team] AI Battlefield, 'One-Stop' Proactive Management... Sejong AI and Digital Competition Law Team

"Proactive Response Is Key Before Winner-Takes-All Polarization Becomes Entrenched"

Changhoon Lee, Head of the AI and Digital Competition Law Team at Sejong Law Firm (center), along with attorneys Gyutae Park (left) and Taeseok Kim, is being interviewed by The Asia Business Daily at their office in Jongno-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jo Yongjun

"The artificial intelligence (AI) market is a place where polarization is maximized. The conditions for competition established during its formative stage will shape the industrial landscape for decades to come."

Changhoon Lee, Head of the AI and Digital Competition Law Team at Sejong Law Firm (Judicial Research and Training Institute, 33rd class), made these remarks in an interview with The Asia Business Daily on May 20.

Recently, Sejong Law Firm became the first major law firm in Korea to independently establish an "AI and Digital Competition Law Team." Lee explained the background for this decision, saying, "In AI and digital fields, where highly specialized legal theories and policy trends intersect with sophisticated economic analysis—as is the case with competition law—handling these matters merely as sub-functions within a comprehensive organization is insufficient for an effective response."

Competition law is fundamentally aimed at preventing the harms of market monopolies and protecting competition itself. The reason the AI industry has come under the close scrutiny of competition law authorities lies in its hierarchical structure. Kyutae Park (44th class), an attorney at Sejong, stated, "From the AI semiconductor market represented by Nvidia, to cloud services from Microsoft and Google, and service layers like ChatGPT, there are multiple layers, and each layer faces its own set of competition law issues. The structure is such that dominance in one layer can easily affect adjacent layers." As more users and data concentrate in a particular area, model performance improves, which in turn attracts more users, creating a virtuous cycle that quickly leads the market to converge around a few key players. For this reason, it is assessed that a sophisticated response, tailored to the proactive interventions of global competition authorities, is crucial for corporate survival from the earliest stages of market formation.

Proactive initiatives by major overseas authorities were also a decisive factor in the team's establishment. Lee noted, "Major overseas authorities began research five to six years ago, but Korea has been relatively late to the game. Since the AI and digital markets operate globally, overseas trends tend to appear domestically after some time lag, so we need to be prepared in advance." He pointed out that legislation such as the EU's Digital Markets Act (DMA) and the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCC Act) has become more concrete. Additionally, actions such as default settings, algorithm-based recommendations, exposure structures, and blocking data interoperability—issues not previously addressed by competition law—are now being newly discussed.

The team also emphasized the diversification of risk response strategies for AI companies. Park said, "Risks have now entered a threefold structure, extending beyond administrative actions by competition authorities to encompass criminal investigations and civil damages claims. Resolving only one link in the chain does not control the overall risk." Lee also stressed, "Companies must accurately identify the 'trigger points' monitored by competition authorities and respond proactively."

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