Ministry of SMEs and Startups to Inspect 15,000 Entrusting and Entrusted Companies for Unfair Trade Practices

2026 Regular Survey on Entrusting and Entrusted Transactions to Be Conducted

The Ministry of SMEs and Startups announced on October 18 that it will conduct its “2026 Regular Survey of Entrusted and Consigned Transactions” to address unfair trade practices in business-to-business transactions and establish a fair trade order.

The regular survey of entrusted and consigned transactions is a statutory survey conducted every year under the Act on the Promotion of Mutually Beneficial Cooperation between Large Enterprises and Small and Medium Enterprises. This year’s survey will examine 3,000 commissioning companies and 12,000 commissioned companies for unfair trade practices across transactions conducted throughout 2025.

Entrusted and consigned transactions refer to arrangements in which a company engaged in manufacturing, construction, processing, repair, sales, or services entrusts another small or medium-sized enterprise with the manufacture, construction, processing, or repair of goods, parts, semi-finished products, or raw materials, or with technology development, and the entrusted SME performs the relevant work.

The main items under review concern the commissioning companies’ obligations, including whether they have complied with the price linkage system for payments for supplied goods; issued written agreements; paid for supplied goods and met payment deadlines; unfairly reduced payments for supplied goods; unfairly determined payment amounts; or unfairly requested technical data.

In particular, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups has improved its survey method, which previously focused on transactions during the first half of the year. Starting with this survey, it has extended the period covered from six months to one year. This is intended to reduce the likelihood that industries with transactions concentrated in the second half of the year, such as distribution, food, and construction, will be left out of the survey, and to strengthen oversight of transactions throughout the year.

The survey will be conducted in three stages: a review of commissioning companies’ transaction records and a survey of those companies; a survey of commissioned companies; and on-site inspections of companies suspected of violating the law. If violations of the Act on Mutually Beneficial Cooperation are confirmed, the commissioning companies concerned will face administrative measures, including requests to take corrective action, in accordance with relevant laws and regulations.

More information about the survey is available on the Comprehensive Portal for SME Entrusted and Consigned Transactions. In addition, from October 20 to 30, the Ministry of SMEs and Startups plans to hold regional corporate briefings on the survey in six regions across the country, including Gyeonggi, Seoul, Daegu, Daejeon, Busan, and Gwangju, for commissioning and commissioned companies.

Lee Euncheong, Director General of the Win-Win Cooperation Policy Bureau at the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, said, “Shared growth begins with establishing fair trade practices. We ask companies to actively cooperate so that this survey can carefully listen to the voices of businesses and serve as an opportunity to find ways to establish a fair trade culture and promote mutually beneficial cooperation.”

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