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Lee, Hwang; Lee, Byung Geon --- "Korea" [2010] ELECD 774; in Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan (eds), "The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: The International Handbook on Private Enforcement of Competition Law

Editor(s): Foer, A. Albert; Cuneo, W. Jonathan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448773

Section: Chapter 34

Section Title: Korea

Author(s): Lee, Hwang; Lee, Byung Geon

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

34 Korea
Hwang Lee1 and Byung Geon Lee2


Introduction
During the last few years, there has been a gradual increase in Korea of private damages
actions in conjunction with the intensifying Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC)
public enforcement of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (MRFTA). This
has been particularly so in the areas of cartel and abuse of dominance cases.3 A Korean
newspaper recently reported that, as of the end of 2008, approximately 12-16 cases were
pending at the Seoul Central District Court, most of which were follow-on actions from
KFTC proceedings. 4
More recent private damages actions of significance include those on military-use
gasoline bid rigging (2001), school uniform price fixing (2002), local phone call price
fixing (2005), flour and sugar price fixing (2006), and Microsoft's tying case (2008). 5 The
military-use gasoline case was particularly striking because of the large damages award,
approximately KRW 81 billion, declared by the district court in 2007. The Ministry of
National Defense brought this suit following the KFTC's imposition of a KRW 190
billion surcharge on five cartel members in 2000, which was the largest fine at that time.
The school uniform case is also noteworthy because of the large number of opt-in plain-
tiffs under the representative action system. In that case, 3,525 parents who had bought
school uniforms participated in the litigation with the help of several consumers' groups.
During the course of litigation, as shown below, significant limitations ...