[Asia Economy Reporter Eunju Lee] The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has been strengthening its resolve to curb big tech platforms since the beginning of the year. While accelerating the handling of big tech company cases, the FTC chairman has repeatedly conveyed the message that new legislation should be considered to regulate their monopolistic practices. There is growing weight to the possibility that the 'unfair practices' of big tech companies will be concretized through legislation rather than through review guidelines.
According to industry sources on the 3rd, big tech platforms (Naver, Kakao, Line, Coupang, Baedal Minjok) are expected to be the focus of intensive monitoring by the FTC throughout this year. On the 2nd, FTC Chairman Han Ki-jung hinted at the possibility of additional legislation to regulate the monopolies of big tech companies in an interview with a media outlet. In his New Year's address, he also mentioned, “It is necessary to review with internal and external experts whether the current laws are sufficient to resolve monopolies emerging in new markets such as online platforms.”
The online platform monopoly review guidelines, designed to regulate the monopolies of platform companies, will be approved at a plenary meeting in the early part of this month. According to industry sources, the content defining so-called unfair trade practices by big tech companies, which was originally planned to be included in the review guidelines, was removed, leaving only the abuse of market-dominant position in the guidelines. The review guidelines act as a 'guideline' during the FTC's review process and serve as an important reference in court rulings. However, since they do not have legal binding force, it is highly likely that the unfair practices of platform companies will be concretized soon through separate legislation. Attention should be paid to the background behind Chairman Han’s frequent mention of the ‘need for new laws.’
The FTC is also accelerating the handling of big tech company cases. The FTC has completed investigations into Kakao Mobility and Kakao Entertainment and plans to deliberate on them within the first half of the year. Previously, Kakao Mobility was investigated on suspicion of favoring its affiliated taxi service, Kakao T Blue, by funneling 'calls' (passenger requests) through the Kakao T app, and engaging in 'call blocking' practices that made it difficult for affiliated taxi drivers of competing companies Tada and Wooty (a joint venture between Uber and T Map Mobility) to receive Kakao T calls for free and operate their businesses. Kakao Entertainment was investigated on suspicion of restricting authors’ rights to create derivative works during processes such as web novel contests and webtoon serialization contracts.
Organizational restructuring to promote platform regulation has also progressed rapidly. In December last year, Lee Hwaryeong, former head of the Platform Economy Research Team at the Korea Development Institute (KDI), was appointed as head of the Economic Analysis Division. With the advent of the platform era, market competition restriction acts related to strategies such as ‘strategic deficits,’ ‘multi-homing restrictions,’ and ‘self-preferencing’ have made competition authorities’ judgments more difficult, making meticulous economic analysis increasingly important. Additionally, the temporary Online Platform Team was expanded to establish the Online Platform Policy Division. This division is responsible for formulating policies related to resolving monopolies of online platform companies, excluding the online platform monopoly review guidelines.
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