2011년 경제법 중요 판례

Korean Supreme Court(KSCt) rendered a number of meaningful cases on Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Law(MRFTL). KSCt decided a landmark case on the Retail Price Maintenance end of last year and this year in two different cases. In 2007, US Supreme court rendered a monumental decision on the same Retail Price Maintenance issue in so called Leegin case. Before this case was made, US courts took the per se illegal standard formulated on the Dr. Miles case in 1911. But in Leegin case, US Supreme court change its standard to rule of reason. From this time on, in Korea there were number of critical articles in this issue and finally in those cases Korean Supreme Court took the trend to follow the rule of reason standard irrespective of the wordings of MRFTA art 29. In damage calculation, KSCt took the similar rule stipulated in Bigelow v. RKO Radio Pictures,Inc case by saying that plaintiff can produce number of economic theories for the purpose of calculating the damages, but, it should be reasonable in order to prove the total amount of damages, which is difference between the actual purchasing price and hypothetical price based upon the economic formula presented to the courts. In exclusive dealing case, KSCt reaffirmed that anti-competitiveness would be the standard to decide the unjustness of the exclusive dealing arrangement. In SK melon case, KSCt decided that in technology market, dynamism has to be contemplated in deciding the illegality of the behavior of the player with the market dominant position.