Six Selected as 2025 "Fair Trade Persons of the Year," Including Investigators of YouTube Bundling Case

Lee Ji-hye, Deputy Director, and Yoo Pureum, Investigator, who handled the case involving Google's abuse of its market-dominant position, have been selected as the "Fair Trade Persons of the Year" by the Korea Fair Trade Commission.

The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 20th that it had selected six individuals, including Deputy Director Lee and Investigator Yoo, as the Fair Trade Persons of the Year for the previous year.

Deputy Director Lee and Investigator Yoo of the Knowledge Industry Monitoring Division, who were chosen as the top employees, were responsible for the Google consent decree case. This case involved Google abusing its market-dominant position by bundling YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. After Google submitted its consent decree application, they held intensive in-person and virtual meetings with Google employees both in Korea and abroad. As a result, they arranged a consent decree allowing consumers to subscribe to a standalone YouTube video service (YouTube Lite), excluding YouTube Music, for 8,500 won.

A Fair Trade Commission official commented, "We set the price of YouTube Lite in Korea at the lowest level worldwide," adding, "We also secured more favorable outcomes for Korean consumers, such as ensuring that background play and offline storage features are available on YouTube Lite." The official further explained, "Additionally, Google agreed to contribute 30 billion won to the Korea Educational Broadcasting System (EBS) to operate a music industry support program as part of a mutual growth initiative."

As outstanding employees, Jung Yongseon, Deputy Director of the Corporate Merger Division; Lee Sangheon, Deputy Director of the Economic Analysis Division; and Lee Donggyu, Deputy Director of the Investigation Coordination Office, were selected. They detected and sanctioned collusion among the three major domestic mobile carriers (SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus), who had restricted subscriber acquisition competition for over seven years. As a commendable case, Lee Sunhee, Deputy Director of the Adjudication Coordination Office, was recognized for leading the amendment of the Subcontracting Act to invalidate unfair contract terms and cost transfers in subcontracting agreements.