The Constitutional Court on the 28th designated the pharmaceutical company GC Pharma's "suspected vaccine bid rigging" case as the first case under the new adjudication complaint system. The case involves allegations that GC Pharma colluded with other drugmakers in the vaccine bidding process; criminal courts acquitted the defendants, but administrative courts found that the Korea Fair Trade Commission's penalty surcharge was justified, drawing criticism that the civil and criminal trial outcomes were inconsistent.
The Constitutional Court said that, based on the preliminary review by the assigned panel conducted that day, it decided to dismiss 37 adjudication complaints and refer one case to the full bench. The complaint referred to the full bench is the case related to the suspected vaccine bid rigging filed by GC Pharma, represented by YulChon.
GC Pharma received a corrective order and a penalty surcharge payment order from the Korea Fair Trade Commission, along with other companies, on the grounds that in three procurement bids for the HPV4 (Gardasil) vaccine ordered by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency from April 2017 to January 2019, it recruited vaccine wholesalers as "stooges" to participate and then won as the first priority bidder, thereby engaging in bid rigging. The penalty surcharge imposed on GC Pharma is 2.035 billion won.
Prosecutors indicted six pharmaceutical companies, including GC Pharma, and seven executives in connection with the allegations. At the first trial, company executives were fined 3 million to 5 million won, and the corporations indicted alongside them were fined as follows: GC Pharma and GSK plc, 70 million won each; Boryung Biopharma and Yuhan, 50 million won; SK discovery and Kwangdong Pharmaceutical, 30 million won.
The appeals court, however, returned not-guilty verdicts. The appellate panel found that vaccine bidding is effectively structured such that, without a manufacturer's supply commitment, winning a bid is realistically difficult, making genuine competition hard to achieve. The Supreme Court upheld the appellate ruling, finalizing acquittals for GC Pharma and the other drugmakers.
The Supreme Court's view in the administrative case differed. GC Pharma filed suit seeking to overturn the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC)'s corrective order and penalty surcharge disposition. On Feb. 12, the Supreme Court summarily dismissed GC Pharma's appeal seeking to cancel the penalty surcharge.
In response, GC Pharma said, "The lower court's ruling adopted an interpretation contrary to the related criminal judgment that returned not-guilty verdicts," and argued that "by summarily dismissing the appeal, it infringed the rights to trial and property," filing a constitutional complaint (adjudication complaint) on the 16th of last month seeking to overturn the judgment.
Meanwhile, since the adjudication complaint system was introduced on the 12th of last month, 525 cases had been filed as of the day before (the 27th). Of these, 265 were dismissed after preliminary screening by the assigned panel.