The Korea Fair Trade Commission said on the 24th it will impose a 27 million won penalty surcharge and a corrective order on maintenance contractors Juwon DNP and Irumi Construction.
According to the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) that day, the two businesses agreed on the expected winner and bid prices in the January 2023 maintenance work tender for Sujeong Hanyang Apartment in Ansan, Gyeonggi Province. The bidding manager at Juwon DNP leveraged an acquaintance made at a patent training center with the bidding manager at Irumi Construction to ask the company to serve as a "foil" in the bid, which set the case in motion. Irumi Construction accepted Juwon DNP's proposal.
Afterward, the two companies designated Juwon DNP as the expected winner, discussed and decided their bid prices, and participated in the tender. As a result, Juwon DNP won the bid and secured a 2.2 billion won construction contract. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) applied a violation of Article 40, Paragraph 1, Item 8 of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, which bans bid rigging, to the two companies. It imposed a 19 million won penalty surcharge on Juwon DNP and an 8 million won penalty surcharge on Irumi Construction.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said, "We detected and sanctioned collusion in bidding for maintenance work funded by apartment residents' maintenance fees," adding, "If violations of the law are detected in bid-rigging cases in the livelihood sector going forward, we will take strict action."