FTC Sets For Investigation On Local State Owned Business

The Korea Fair Trade Commission sets today for the investigation on the unfair trade activities of the 30 state owned business such as Seoul Metropolitan Development Corp,Pusan Metropolitan Installation Management Corporation, Kwangju Urban Development Corporation.

FTC built up an investigation team with the experts from the Antitrust Bureau and 4 other local offices yesterday and will continue the spot investigation on the 30 state owned business for 45 days from today.

Oh Sung-Hwan, the director of the Antitrust Bureau said, ``The investigation will focus on the large state-owned businesses that are monopolistic businesses in the local area and that have been closely tied to the lives of low-income class populations. The implementation of the overall investigation was inevitable since over 30 unfair trade activities of the local state-owned business have been reported every year.``

FTC will investigate such unfair trade activities such as forced sales for facility use, unreasonable charge of fees, disadvantages in the process of contract and the following implementation, forced transaction, conditional transaction, rejection of transaction, or discriminations for various reasons.

FTC will also review the regulations by local governments that limit free competition or other unfair articles in the provisions of the contracts.

FTC investigated on the contract papers of the local institutions in 1997 but the full-scale investigation on the local state owned business is carried out for the first time.

yhchoi65@donga.com