Ju Biung-ghi Chairperson of the Fair Trade Commission said, "Given that excessive concentration of economic power in large business groups is a structural cause of market monopolization, structural measures will also be highly effective in curbing the harms of economic concentration, such as private interest appropriation and unfair support."
Chairperson Ju met with the domestic press in Manila, the Philippines, on the 7th local time while attending the International Competition Network (ICN), and said, "We are facing a situation where it is difficult to fundamentally resolve monopolistic structures with behavioral remedies that stop illegal conduct in the future and with post hoc imposition of a penalty surcharge," adding this point.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) appears set to speed up the introduction of structural measures to stamp out repeat collusion. Although introducing structural measures requires revising the law and no concrete plan has been drawn up yet, the FTC plans to move quickly through the procedures to strengthen measures to root out repeat collusion.
Structural measures are corrective tools that order corporations' partitioning, equity sales, or business transfers to resolve serious competition restrictions such as monopolies. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) decided at the task force (TF) meeting of related Ministers for special management of livelihood prices on the 23rd of last month to examine whether to introduce structural measures as a countermeasure if collusion is repeated.
Chairperson Ju said, "We need to closely examine which specific legal violations would trigger structural measures and at what level," adding that structural measures should be designed with utmost caution so they are carried out only as a last resort.
Regarding repeat collusion, Chairperson Ju said, "The sugar collusion case involved key company executives, had a significant impact on the national economy, and was collusion carried out over a long period," adding, "If such collusion is repeated, we must take very stern measures. For a case of this magnitude, I think structural measures such as a business transfer should be used."
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) also said it plans to prepare measures to prevent foreign corporations from using expedient acquisitions to secure domestic tech talent. Chairperson Ju said, "We plan to explicitly include new types of business combinations, such as 'acqui-hire,' which circumvent merger review, as subjects of business combination filing and review."
Acqui-hire refers to a talent-acquisition type of business combination, meaning an M&A that, unlike traditional mergers and acquisitions (M&A) of a company or business unit, secures core talent such as founders and technology or licenses.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) plans to prepare a draft amendment in the first half of the year to its public notice, "Guidelines for filing business combinations." The FTC plans to clearly stipulate that when the organized transfer of key personnel has the effect of a business acquisition, it will be subject to business combination filing and review. Under domestic fair trade laws and regulations, the types of business combinations are divided into five: ▲ stock acquisition ▲ concurrent holding of executive positions ▲ merger ▲ business acquisition ▲ participation in company establishment.