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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] SEOUL, June 5 — The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has imposed a record 1.7 trillion won ($1.3 billion) in fines this year, driven largely by cartel cases.
Major penalties included 671 billion won for flour price-fixing, 396 billion won for sugar, 338.3 billion won for paper and 272 billion won for collusion among four major banks on mortgage loan-to-value (LTV) ratios. Additional cases, including unfair support by HDC and customer inducement practices by Mercedes-Benz Korea, brought the total to over 1.7 trillion won.
The tally marks the highest annual level on record, with total fines expected to exceed 2 trillion won once ongoing investigations into starch syrup and government bond cartel cases are concluded later this year.
The KFTC estimates that four starch syrup producers generated about 6.2 trillion won in sales over seven years through collusion, suggesting potential fines could reach up to 1.24 trillion won.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
