Korea Fair Trade Commission Lose 43.5 Pct of Lawsuits at Supreme Court

The rate of FTC`s defeat at the lawsuits piled by the business has highly increased highest during this Administration. And the complaints of the business to the court against the FTC`s rectification measure such as the imposition of additional collections.

According to the report of FTC to Rep. Um Ho-Young (GNP), the defeated rate of the lawsuits of the FTC marked 36.3 percent including the complete and partial loses in case of the High Court. The rates since its launch in 1981 recorded 35.3 percent during the Chun Du-Hwan and Nho Tae-Woo administration and a little lowered 28.6 percent during the Kim Young-Sam administration, and bounced back during this administration.

The defeated rate at the Supreme Court was 23.1 percent before the inauguration of the YS administration and recorded 35.5 percent during the YS administration and jumped to 43.5 percent in the DJ administration.

Consequently, the rate of the complete winning of FTC has been lowered from 76.9 percent before the YS administration, 64.5 percent during the YS administration, to 56.5 percent in the DJ administration.

The lawsuits complained by the business against the rectification measure of FTC numbered 17 before the YS administration, 49 during the YS administration, but hiked up to 113 only for three and half years of the DJ administration.

Mr. Lee Hyong-Man said that ``the current administration has unreasonably applied the standards of illegal internal transaction to the business activities in order for so-called `chaebol reformation`, which eventually led for the business to file lawsuit, ending up with the high rate of the FTC`s defeat.``

However, a related source of the FTC remarked, ``the reason why the lawsuits against the FTC has increased is because of the increased imposition of additional collection to the business by the new right of FTC for the investigation on the illegal internal transactions. And since the partial defeat could be understood as partial win, the defeated rated cannot simply interpreted as highly increased.``

Park Joong-Hyun sanjuck@donga.com