Moorim on the 23rd issued an official apology and announced measures to prevent a recurrence immediately after the Korea Fair Trade Commission released its decision on price collusion.
Moorim said, "We deeply apologize for causing concern regarding this matter," and noted, "We are taking the seriousness of the issue to heart." It added, "To prevent a recurrence of such incidents, we will prepare fundamental corrective measures at the companywide level and implement them."
To prevent a recurrence, Moorim plans to comprehensively strengthen its compliance management system around three pillars—systems, organization, and education. First, on the systems side, it will upgrade the existing compliance system and establish a fair-trade monitoring regime to conduct ongoing checks of sales and transaction processes across all business institutional sectors. Earlier, in Mar., Moorim expressed its companywide commitment to action through a "compliance management declaration ceremony" and introduced a compliance control system.
At the organizational level, it will operate a dedicated compliance department separately. The department will strengthen prior reviews of fair-trade and contract execution processes and serve as a control tower that systematically manages legal risks. In addition, when violations related to fair trade are detected, the company plans to enforce the highest level of disciplinary measures, including suspension and dismissal, to rigorously establish compliance discipline within the organization.
In the education institutional sector as well, the company will mandate regular compliance training for executives and employees and strengthen its internal whistleblowing system to report illegal or improper conduct through an anonymous reporting platform.
A Moorim official said, "We will take this matter as a lesson learned and establish a transparent and fair management system through stricter compliance standards and an effective internal control system."
That day, the Korea Fair Trade Commission said it uncovered that six paper companies, including Moorim and Hansol Paper, colluded on prices of printing paper for education and publishing for about 3 years and 10 months. Accordingly, it decided to impose corrective orders along with a total penalty surcharge of 338.3 billion won.