"This Time, You Win the Bid"... 10 School-Uniform Dealers Fined 102 Million Won for Bid-Rigging

10 dealers caught colluding in 51 tenders
Used KakaoTalk to rotate winning bids and reap excessive profits instead of competing

Local school-uniform dealers that colluded on bid prices for years by exploiting loopholes in the school-led uniform purchasing system, introduced to ease the burden of uniform costs on parents, have been sanctioned by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC). As the uniform market shrank with declining student numbers, the dealers reportedly formed a covert cartel, deciding the order of winning bids through KakaoTalk and text messages instead of engaging in cutthroat competition.

The FTC said on October 13 that it had uncovered collusion by 10 school-uniform dealers in three regions—Yongin, Ulsan and Yeongcheon—in 51 bids to supply uniforms to middle and high schools. The commission issued corrective orders and imposed fines totaling 102 million won. The dealers were branches of well-known brands that held shares of their local uniform markets. They were found to have carefully agreed in advance on the designated winning bidder and bid prices before taking part in the tenders.

In Cheoin-gu, Yongin, where the largest fines were imposed, four dealers—Smart Student Uniform Yongin, Ivy Club Yongin, Elite Student Uniform Yongin and SSENTEN Student Uniform Yongin—colluded in 15 bids issued by eight schools between September 2022 and October 2025. Smart Student Uniform Yongin, a long-established presence in the area, sought cooperation from rival dealers by sending them a list of schools it hoped to win by text message after the entry of a new competitor intensified price competition. It did so to prevent low-price bids and secure its target volume. The other dealers readily agreed, and in some tenders the collusion resulted in an abnormally high average winning bid of 98.29% of the estimated price. The FTC fined the four dealers a total of 72 million won. The commission also issued corrective orders to School Looks Giheung and Smart Student Uniform Singal, both in Giheung-gu, Yongin, for agreeing by phone to submit sham bids in one tender to prevent it from being canceled due to a single bidder.

In Nam-gu, Ulsan, and Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, personal ties between business owners and local market concentration provided fertile ground for collusion. The owners of Ivy Club Ulsan Nam-gu and Smart Student Uniform Ulsan Nam-gu, who had previously been coworkers, used KakaoTalk to decide the winning bidders and sham bidders in six tenders. They were fined a total of 9 million won. In Yeongcheon, the local market was dominated by just two branded dealers: Smart Student Uniform Yeongcheon and Elite Student Uniform Yeongcheon. Taking advantage of this lack of competition, they colluded in 29 tenders. After meeting at a uniform sample presentation and agreeing to avoid competing with each other, they adopted a so-called rotation system under which the dealer that had lost the previous tender would automatically win the next one. The FTC fined them 21 million won.

This collusion in the school-uniform market appears to stem from structural limitations in the current system, under which schools select suppliers through lowest-price bids within the price ceiling announced annually by provincial and metropolitan offices of education. As the number of incoming students at each school continues to fall amid a declining school-age population, dealers are turning to illegal cooperation rather than fair competition to survive.

Since 2010, the FTC has uncovered a total of 52 cases of collusion in school-uniform tenders nationwide. It has also been working to strengthen the effectiveness of financial penalties, including by substantially raising the minimum surcharge rates for collusion starting in April 2026. Since May 2026, the commission has conducted intensive monitoring through a bid-rigging risk analysis system in cooperation with 16 provincial and metropolitan offices of education. It plans to continue taking a firm stance, including through ex officio investigations, against uniform-price collusion that threatens household finances and takes money out of parents' pockets.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.