[THE INVESTOR] The Fair Trade Commission has canceled a hefty amount of corporate penalties over the past five years as it has been losing lawsuits or lifted them voluntarily, a report showed Oct. 4.

In the report submitted to Rep. Park Yong-jin of the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea for an annual parliamentary audit of its affairs, the antitrust watchdog said the amount of canceled corporate penalties stood at 995.5 billion won (US$903 million) between 2012 and this year.

In the first nine months of this year alone, the amount reached 330.9 billion won, compared with 385 billion won for all of last year.

This year’s increase was attributed mainly to the FTC’s loss in a lawsuit filed by South Korea’s largest noodle maker Nongshim.

Late last year, the antitrust watchdog lost the court battle with Nongshim over alleged collusion to fix the prices of instant noodles. The loss forced the FTC to return early this year 108 billion won in penalties collected from Nongshim to the company.

This year, the FTC also lost lawsuits with Daewoo Engineering & Construction and POSCO Engineering & Construction over their alleged collusion for bidding.

Last year, the FTC lost a court battle with the country’s major oil refiners, having a combined penalty of 254.8 billion won revoked.

The lawmaker called on the antitrust watchdog to hone up its capabilities to cope actively with suspected law violations by companies and impose foolproof penalties on violators.

(theinvestor@heraldcorp.com)