Over the past three and a half years, the corporations group that the Fair Trade Commission imposed the most penalty surcharge on was tallied as Coupang. The place with the most enforcement cases was Hyundai Department Store Group.
Rep. Chu Kyung-ho of the People Power Party, a member of the National Policy Committee, said on Oct. 19 that, according to data on corporations group sanctions received through the Fair Trade Commission, the No. 1 in cumulative penalty surcharge from 2022 to the first half of this year was Coupang at about 162.8 billion won.
Coupang ranked first based on a single case last year in which it was sanctioned on suspicion of manipulating its search algorithm to raise the "Coupang ranking" of products to boost sales of its private-label goods and directly purchased goods, in violation of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.
Second was Hyundai Motor (119.4 billion won), followed by Harim (101.6 billion won) and SK (64.5 billion won). The cumulative penalty surcharge of the top 10 corporations during this period was calculated at 744.6 billion won.
During the same period, the place with the most legal violations at the level of warning or above was Hyundai Department Store Group, with a total of 38 violations tallied. Hyundai Department Store Group is analyzed to have taken first place due to successive detections of furniture collusion by its affiliate Hyundai LIVART.
Other than Hyundai Department Store, HANSSEM (33 times), SK (31 times), and ENEX (28 times) had many detections. The cumulative number of legal violations by the top 10 corporations was 243.
Rep. Chu Kyung-ho said, "Most of the corporations on which the Fair Trade Commission imposed a penalty surcharge are corporations closely tied to the daily lives of the public," adding, "To prevent damage from unfair trade, the Fair Trade Commission must carry out its duties responsibly."