- Bilateral consultations between Korea-U.S. competition authorities -
Vice Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission Cho Hong sun shared various opinions with Manish Kumar, deputy assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Justice's anti-trust bureau, at the Korea Fair Trade Adjustment Institute on Feb. 27 (Tue), regarding the direction of competition policies in 2024, and cooperation measures for law enforcement between the two authorities.
Vice Chairman Cho explained that the FTC plans to pursue four key tasks this year with the aim of "establishing a fair market economy that supports people's livelihood and innovation," and emphasized that it will strictly respond to violations of the law that burden people's livelihoods in connection with the task of "establishing a fair trade order that supports the dynamic economy."
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① Establishing a fair trade order that supports the dynamic economy
② Establishment of stable trading base for small and medium-sized enterprises and small business owners
③ Creating an environment where consumer rights and interests are guaranteed
④ Rational Operation of the Large Enterprise Group System
In particular, Vice Chairman Cho introduced the FTC's law enforcement requirements and procedures for collusion to the US Department of Justice delegation and emphasized that this year, it will strictly respond to collusion in the fields of food, clothing, shelter, finance, telecommunications, and intermediate goods, which are directly linked to the economic burden of the people. In addition, it also introduced the expansion of the scope of public institutions obligated to submit bidding information to the FTC through the recent revision of the Fair Trade Act.
In addition, Vice Chairman Cho explained that he plans to preemptively discover and analyze issues that may limit competition and infringe on consumer rights and interests centered on new technology markets such as artificial intelligence (AI).
* Forming a dedicated T/F (external expert participation) and collecting public opinions step by step to derive policy directions that fully reflect industry and private ideas, and actively linking with global discussions such as the OECD to ensure international consistency
Subsequently, Vice Chairman Cho explained the improvement of the FTC's case handling procedures and reorganization in April 2023, evaluating that these changes have increased the FTC's law enforcement expertise and efficiency.
Deputy Assistant Secretary Kumar discussed priorities in law enforcement in the collusion field, and expressed great interest in the FTC's continuous efforts to strengthen detection and sanctions on bid rigging in the public sector and to enhance the expertise and accountability of case handling. In addition, in the case of collusion, it was emphasized that close cooperation between competition authorities is very important as the action or effect often spans multiple countries.
In addition, Deputy Secretary Kumar recently introduced ongoing cases at the U.S. Department of Justice's anti-trust bureau, and the two authorities reached a consensus on the importance of cooperation between competition authorities, such as sharing law enforcement experiences and exchanging various opinions to respond to competitive issues in the digital economy.
Meanwhile, the two authorities reaffirmed that they will continue to engage in close exchanges as they have been exchanging through various channels such as bilateral councils and international conferences since signing the "MOU on antitrust cooperation" between the Fair Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in 2015.
Vice Chairman Cho thanked Kumar and a delegation from the U.S. Department of Justice for visiting Korea, reiterated the importance of responding through cooperation and cooperation between competition authorities to violations of competition laws that are directly linked to people's livelihoods, and proposed to further strengthen international cooperation between the two authorities, including human exchanges.
In the future, the FTC plans to further solidify international cooperation with foreign competition authorities and actively respond to competition policies and law enforcement issues through this.