This article was published on the ChosunBiz RM Report site at 11:03 a.m. on March 17, 2025.
KT reportedly lost the second trial of a damage compensation lawsuit amounting to approximately 1.2 billion won related to a collusion incident in public projects bidding on the 17th.
The Seoul High Court Civil Division 18-3 (Director General Jin Hyun-min, Wang Jeong-ok, Park Sun-jun) dismissed KT's appeal in the second trial of a damage compensation lawsuit filed by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information against KT on the 14th. This maintained the first trial's ruling in favor of the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information.
According to the ruling, the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information conducted a bidding process in 2015 for selecting a contractor to establish and operate a network connecting 16 universities and research institutions across the country. KT received promises from SK Broadband and LG Uplus stating they would not participate in the bidding and paid them approximately 3.6 billion won as compensation for this. Through this, KT independently signed a contract valued at about 12 billion won.
An investigation by the Fair Trade Commission revealed that four telecommunications companies, including KT, SK Broadband, LG Uplus, and SEJONG Telecom, colluded in bids for dedicated line projects in 12 public sectors for nine public institutions from 2015 to 2017. A dedicated line is a communication line used exclusively by specific companies instead of the public network shared by the general public. The contracts these telecommunications companies secured for 12 projects amounted to approximately 161.4 billion won. In response, the Fair Trade Commission imposed corrective orders and total penalty surcharges of about 13.3 billion won on the companies in 2019.
The Fair Trade Commission also reported KT, which led the collusion, to the prosecution. KT won bids for eight out of the 12 projects. The nine public institutions that suffered damage filed a damage compensation lawsuit against the telecommunications companies. KT was also sued for a total of 7.25 billion won in damages by the nine institutions. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information filed this lawsuit against KT in 2021.
The first trial ruled that KT must compensate the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information approximately 1.2 billion won. The first trial court stated, "KT submitted a clean contract stating that if it engaged in behaviors such as colluding in the bidding related to the contract, it would pay 10% of the total contract amount as compensation," and noted, "KT was recognized for participating in bidding collusion, including receiving a penalty surcharge from the Fair Trade Commission in 2019 related to this bidding." The court also said, "Bidding collusion is a very serious illegal act that undermines the fairness of bidding and free competition, causing significant harm to the client."
KT appealed against this but the second trial dismissed the appeal, stating that the first trial ruling was valid.