공정거래위원회의 제재 내용의 방향성에 관한 연구 -시정명령을 중심으로-

If the competition authority detects an entity committing competition law violation, it can pursue administrative proceedings to investigate, prohibit and sanction anti-competitive behavior. The main focus of this article is on the content of the remedies, especially Corrective Measures by the Korea Fair Trade Commission (hereinafter “KFTC”). I discuss on the desirable content of competition authority’s remedies which are most appropriate for innovation. My concern is about which content the KFTC’s Corrective Measures should have and under which condition the KFTC has to intervene in the firm’s business practices. As for the optimum market structure for promoting innovation competition, there have been disputes between the Schumpeterians and the followers of Kenneth Arrow. The Schumpeterian viewpoint suggests that market dominant firms and monopolists may be more innovative than firms in competitive markets by virtue of their size and capacity. However the opposite party tackles them by defying that a monopolist bears a opportunity cost when innovating that an innovating competitor does not. I agree with the latter because if market dominant firms and monopolists are sheltered from competitive pressure, they will probably try to innovate only to the extent necessary for guarding their status. The amount of innovation by firms in competitive markets could be expected to increase by competition policy. So does the amount of innovation by market dominant firms and monopolists. Citing Professor Jonathan Baker, the competition authority’s intervention should be focused on industry settings and categories of behavior where enforcement can promote innovation. He reasonably and rationally argues that an competition policy aimed at fostering innovation would challenge practices that directly reduce innovation competition regardless of industry. For example, competition authority should attack agreements among innovation rivals not to conduct R&D, undertaken with no legitimate justification. Innovation competition can also be promoted by remedies to restrictions on competition in technology markets. Competition authority’s intervention to foster product market competition in “winner-take-most” or “winner-take- all” markets, including many high-tech markets, can be expected in general to benefit innovation. Enforcing the competition law to protect product market competition can be expected to benefit innovation in the type of industry in which the extent of future product market competition is likely to be unaffected by the extent of current product market competition because of probable technological or regulatory developments. All these comments seem to give us very important implication for competition policy. After all, like other competition authority such as the Federal Trade Commission in US, the KFTC should have and exercise broad discretion to choose the advisable content of structural or behavioral remedies that may improve innovation competition.