Yanolja and YeogiEottae Company, which split the domestic lodging reservation market, face being reported for unfair transactions against partner businesses.
The Ministry of SMEs and Startups said on the 14th that it asked the Korea Fair Trade Commission to request a criminal complaint on charges of violating the fair trade law, saying Yanolja and YeogiEottae harmed small businesses by letting unused portions of discount coupons included in ad products expire without refunds.
According to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), from February 2017 to May 2024, Yanolja sold a "near me coupon ad" product and did not return about 1.2 billion won in discount coupon expense that was unused when the ad contracts ended. The Korea Fair Trade Commission imposed a corrective order and a 540 million won penalty surcharge in Aug. last year.
YeogiEottae also ran a "premium ad" product from June 2017 to Aug. last year, set the validity of discount coupons to just one day, and let unused coupons worth about 35.9 billion won expire without refunds. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) issued a corrective order and a 1 billion won penalty surcharge in the same month.
Unfair subcontracting transaction cases in manufacturing were also included. INFAC, an auto parts corporations, from April 2019 to February 2021 outsourced the manufacture of auto part molds without issuing written contracts, unfairly reduced or failed to pay subcontract payments, and was found to have caused total damages of 535.19 million won. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a corrective order and a 760 million won penalty surcharge in Sept. last year.
INFAC's affiliate INFAC PM also, from January to May 2020, was known to have caused 136.4 million won in damages to the same commissioned corporations through failure to issue written documents, illegal passing on of defect expense, and reduction or nonpayment of payments. As a result, it received a corrective order and a 200 million won penalty surcharge. The two companies were found to have caused total damages of 671.6 million won to subcontracting small and midsize businesses.
Lee Byeong-gweon, second vice minister of the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS), said, "The mandatory complaint request system is a system to protect small and midsize businesses from unfair acts by businesses in a superior position in transactions," and "this complaint request is meaningful in protecting small and midsize businesses and small merchants from abuses of position by platform businesses and from nonpayment of prices by prime contractors."