KFTC Showcases 'K-Fair Trade Act' at OECD, Leads Discussions on Cartel and Digital Regulation

Attended the Competition Committee in Paris from June 22 to 26

KFTC’s Sanctions on Commercial Banks’ LTV Cartel Praised

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) attended the regular meeting of the Competition Committee held at the headquarters of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, France, leading international discussions by sharing its achievements in improving cartel detection systems and enforcing laws in digital and healthcare markets. Heads of competition authorities from OECD member countries paid particular attention to the KFTC’s strong measures, especially the crackdown on information exchange cartels among major commercial banks and the reform of its whistleblower reward system.

Joo Byungki, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission (right), and Andreas Mundt, President of the German Federal Cartel Office (second from right). Fair Trade Commission.

According to the KFTC on June 26, a delegation led by Chairman Joo Byunggi participated in the OECD Competition Committee’s regular meeting, which took place over five days from June 22 to June 26. Chairman Joo acted as a key speaker on major topics, including cartel detection, anticompetitive information exchange, and consumer policies for digital markets, presenting KFTC’s law enforcement cases to a global audience.

Chairman Joo announced the newly improved whistleblower reward system, which was fully implemented beginning on June 18. He revealed that the cap on rewards has been boldly eliminated and the reward rate has been unified at up to 10% of the imposed fine. He also drew attention by sharing an improvement plan for the leniency program, which differentiates penalty reductions for voluntary reports made before investigations begin, thereby encouraging proactive self-reporting.

In particular, at the roundtable held on June 24, the KFTC’s detection of a cartel involving the exchange of Loan-to-Value (LTV) ratio information among the four major commercial banks was in the spotlight. Chairman Joo pointed out that the banks mimicked each other's lending strategies, which substantially reduced market competition, stressing, "This is the first case in the world to apply the amended cartel regulation on information exchange under the Fair Trade Act revised in December 2021." Benoit Coeure, Chair of the OECD Competition Committee, highly praised the KFTC’s efforts and stated, "I hope that the LTV case will lead to changes in the behavior of global companies in the future."

Additionally, the KFTC introduced its initiatives to promote competition in the healthcare market, such as improving telemedicine regulations within the National Health Insurance system and establishing guidelines for patient reviews. Regarding the digital market, the KFTC presented an integrated approach that combines expertise in fair trade and consumer policy to address anticompetitive practices such as algorithm-based personalized services, self-preferencing, and bundling, which received strong positive feedback.

The KFTC stated, "We will actively reflect the policy trends of global competition authorities identified at this OECD meeting in our future domestic system improvements," adding, "We will continue to expand international law enforcement cooperation based on the cooperative framework established through bilateral meetings with overseas authorities."

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