사업자단체에 의한 불공정거래행위 및 재판매가격유지행위의 강요․방조행위

초록

The impact of unfair business practices and resale price maintenance could get much worse, when they were conducted with the induction or the assistance by trade associations. For instance, if a trade association controls an essential facility and coerces its members to deny the access to the facility by other undertakings, such conduct could be easily deemed illegal and might require some structural remedies as well as behavioral ones. And trade associations should not induce undertakings to be engaged in resale price maintenance schemes, even if such schemes themselves were allowed by the antitrust authorities. Thus Art. 26 Sec. 1(4) of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act of Korea (MRFTA), which prohibits the induction or the assistance of unfair business practices and resale price maintenance by trade associations, is certainly a very useful provision. However, we should bear in mind some limitations on the utility of the provision: (i) it should be implemented in such a way that could avoid conflict with other provisions, such as Art. 26 Sec. 1(1) and (3) of MRFTA; and (ii) there are certain types of unfair business practices that are not apt for the induction by trade associations, such as improper internal trading.