The Korea Fair Trade Commission announced on the 11th that if a business caught violating the Electronic Commerce Act breaches the same law at least four times within five years, it will impose up to double the penalty surcharge.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said it will give advance notice from today through the 31st of a revision to the Notice on Criteria for Imposition of Penalty Surcharges on Businesses Violating the Electronic Commerce Consumer Protection Act (penalty surcharge notice), centered on these measures.
Currently, if the Electronic Commerce Act is violated at least four times over three years, the final penalty surcharge is calculated by adding 50% to the first-calculated amount. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) revised the penalty surcharge notice to extend the period for counting violations to five years and raise the surcharge increase rate to 100%. In addition, if a violation is voluntarily corrected, the penalty surcharge had been reduced by up to 30%, but this rate will be cut to 10%.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) also gave advance notice of legislation for amendments to the enforcement decree and enforcement rule of the Electronic Commerce Act on the same day. Under the revised enforcement decree and enforcement rule, overseas online marketplace operators that meet certain requirements must have an agent to resolve disputes with domestic consumers.
The requirements are: ▲ sales of at least 1 trillion won in the previous year ▲ a monthly average of at least 1 million domestic consumers accessing the online mall during the three months immediately before the end of the previous year ▲ being requested by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) to submit reports and data or items. Meeting any one of these requires appointing an agent in Korea. Accordingly, Chinese e-commerce companies AliExpress and Temu are expected to designate domestic agents.
The items of personal information collected by used-goods platforms such as Karrot Market will also be reduced. Currently, platforms must confirm the buyer's name, date of birth, address, phone number, and email address, but going forward they will need only the phone number and email address.
The above penalty surcharge notice and the amendments to the enforcement decree and enforcement rule of the Electronic Commerce Act will take effect on July 21.