공정경쟁 옴부즈만 도입에 관한 연구

Public institution is a private economic entity under competition law and maintains monopolistic competition in relevant market. For these reasons, it is hard for other party to a transaction to dissent from unfair trade practices such as ‘refusals to deal’, ‘customer restriction’, ‘price discrimination’, ‘abuse of superior bargaining power’. With unfair trade practices being a major legal and economic problem in the world, generally competition agency conducts competition law and public enforcement in order to ensure fair trade. Public enforcement on Monopoly Regulation And Fair Trade Act in Korea is not enough to protect consumer and unfair trade practices in terms of both speedy resolution and internal control system. Against this background, to find to effective public enforcement means, I explore in this article new role of the Ombudsman with regard to public institutions’ unfair trade practices. I show that the ombudsman institution has the authority to cover all general interest and private economic activity by public institutions, as “The Venice Principles” of The European Commission for Democracy through Law and UN Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 16 December 2020 about “The role of Ombudsman and mediator institutions in the promotion and protection of human rights, good governance and the rule of law” show. I argue that Ombudsman promotes fair and free competition, protects unfair trade practices under competition market. I conclude that Competition Ombudsman for Public Institutions is necessary as a new public enforcement.