2013년 경제법 중요 판례

Among the decisions rendered in 2013 by Korean Supreme Court or Seoul High Courtin the area of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act(in short “FTL” hereafter), Cartel caseswere the most frequent cases with the unfair business practice cases. The Information ExchangeAgreement is the issue hotly debated for the last number of years in the cartel cases. KoreanSupreme Court decided that Information Exchange cannot be treated as a violation of article 19 ofFTL as unfair collusion different from those counties, EU or US where concerted actions are regulated by the competition authority. Whether the vertical collusion is prohibited in the wordings of article 19 of FTL is one of thelong-lasting topic in the article 19 of FTL. Korean Supreme Court decided that under the article 19of FTL, the wording itself does not preclude the vertical collusion. Thereby it can comprehensivelyregulate the horizontal cartel as well as the vertical cartel. It will make some impact to thepractice in the cartel related law enforcement. The introduction of Class Action into FTL is one of the pending issue currently in Korean FTL. Under this circumstance, damage case against Microsoft’s tying activity was closed. The plaintifflose the merit on the case because they fail to prove the causation between the damages andMicrosoft’s alleged violation of FTL. In 2012 first Supreme Court cases allowing the damage claimbased upon the FTL was made first time in the history of the Supreme Court. Yet some moretopics have to be studied in terms of the private enforcement of the FTL. In filing a leniency to Korean Fair Trade Commission, Supreme Court decided that it also couldbe done by the other company as a agent on behalf of thealleged company in violation of the FTL.