사업자단체의 부당공동행위

Improper Concerted Acts by Trade Associations

  Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has accumulated abundant experience in regulating cartels committed by trade associations, while applying Art. 26 Sec. 1(1) of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (MRFTA) to such cartels. However, this article makes several suggestions for the improvement of regulation on cartels committed by trade associations. First, acts or practices that evidently affect price competition should be sanctioned under Art. 26 Sec. 1(1), although KFTC often applied Art. 26 Sec. 1(3) to such acts or practices. Second, the application of Art. 19 Sec. 1(3) and (4) should be confined to cartels that control production or divide markets, although KFTC often pursued literal interpretation of those clauses. Third, Art. 19 Sec. 1(8) should be applied to cartel facilitators, while acts or practices unrelated to cartels could be sanctioned under Art. 26 Sec. 1(3) or (4). Fourth, Art. 26 Sec. 2 and Art. 19 Sec. 2 of MRFTA should be converted into general exemption clauses such as Art. 81(3) of the EC treaty, as the current text of those clauses conflicts with global standard of cartel prohibition by exempting hard core cartels in overly out-spoken manner. And fifth, the victims of cartels committed by trade associations should be allowed to bring antitrust damage suit against the members of those associations, and the prosecutors should also be allowed to bring criminal suit against such members.