Anti-monopoly Study On Regulation Of Korean Unfair Trade Practices

The Anti-monopoly Law, as the core of economic laws, has played a significant role in maintaining the free operation of market economy in China.With the implementation of Anti-monopoly Law of China, it can be found that, during the process of regulating the abuse of dominant market position, it is hard to define relevant markets, which makes it difficult to confirm the circumstances of monopoly. It is also the case with Korea. But Korea adopts the regime of unfair trade practices to regulate and control such behaviors, which has exerted tremendous effects. Korea has relatively long and mature experience in the antitrust legislation and practice about unfair trade practices. Therefore, their useful experience and modus operandi are fully worth being learned by us.Through the introduction and analysis of Korea's legislation on unfair trade practices, we can get a quite comprehensive understanding of that regime. Having undergone more than 30 years of evolution and many revisions, the existing Korea's Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act is mature in term of legislation on unfair trade practices. This paper introduces the background and history of Korean unfair trade practices, main provisions of the existing law, forms and standards, law enforcement agencies, etc.. Meanwhile, it compares the regimes of unfair trade practices and abuse of dominant market position from three aspects--the nature, types and legal liability, and analyses their relationship, and then draws the conclusion that the latter is a special law of the former. Eventually, this paper gives a analysis of the drawbacks that the regime of unfair trade practices in our antitrust law has, and stresses the necessity to learn from Korea as well as puts forward some suggestions: promote legislation on unfair trade practices; refine provisions of types; and build diversified system of legal liability; all of which are aimed at better improving our anti-monopoly legal system so as to promote free development of our market competition.