New Fair Trade Act

25 private enterprises, including Kakao, Harim and Celltrion, are to be excluded from the list of large corporation group according to the amended Fair Trade Act.
25 private enterprises, including Kakao, Harim and Celltrion, are to be excluded from the list of large corporation group according to the amended Fair Trade Act.

 

The Fair Trade Commission of South Korea announced on September 27 that an amended Fair Trade Act is put into force on September 30.

According to it, business groups with an asset of 10 trillion won (US$8.95 billion) or more, instead of five trillion won (US$4.98 billion) or more, are classified into the group of large corporations. Once the amended act becomes effective, public enterprises are excluded from the group, too. The most recent classification was carried out in April this year.

Specifically, 25 enterprises in the private sector, including Kakao, Harim and Celltrion, and 12 enterprises in the public sector are to be excluded from the list on the last day of this month. Then, the number of large business groups is reduced from 65 to 28.

In the meantime, a regulation for raising the minimum asset requirement for a holding company to be governed by the Fair Trade Act from 100 billion won (US$89.5 million) to 500 billion won (US$447.5 million) is scheduled to be put into force on July 1 next year. Existing rules are to be applied to those with an asset of 100 billion won to 500 billion won while exclusion from the list of holding companies is available at request. Those planning to maintain their holding company position have to satisfy the asset requirement by June 30.

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