플랫폼 자사우대 규제에 있어 위계 고객유인 적용의 한계 - 쿠팡 위계 고객유인 심결 사건을 글감으로 하여 - = Legal Review of the Coupang Unfair Customer Inducement Trial Case

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

June 2024, KFTC ruled that Coupang had acted as a result of hierarchy-based customer attraction for giving priority to search results for its own products on its own mall and mobilizing its employees to write reviews, and imposed a fine of approximately KRW 160 billion. Regarding platform operators' preferential treatment of their own companies, there were cases of search operators' preferential treatment of their own companies in Korea and abroad, and Amazon's preferential treatment of their own companies in the EU.
In these cases, the regulation of abuse of dominant market position was applied, and sufficient discussions were held on the judgment of dominant market position and the restriction of competition, and the law was enforced. In this case, unfair customer attraction of hierarchy was not accepted as the unfairness of competitive means is a sign of illegality according to the Fair Trade Commission's Guidelines for the Examination of Unfair Trade Practices, and no other defenses are recognized, so the defendant's rebuttal of business justification was not accepted.
However, in cases where a business operator that is not recognized as having a dominant market position engages in an act that has the appearance of restricting competition within its platform, there was no consideration as to whether the act would increase efficiency through bundling with other services, or whether restricting competition within the platform would lead to increased competition between platforms, thereby increasing the efficiency of the overall market.
In the case of the United States, there has been active discussion since immediately after the enactment of the FTC Act regarding the scope of application of the “unfair means of competition” in Article 5 of the FTC Act, and competition authorities have been flexibly applying the law by announcing standards for application of the law according to the situation. In Korea, there has not been much discussion on whether it is appropriate to disallow other grounds for defense since the unfairness of the means of competition inducing customers through hierarchy is a sign of illegality, but it is expected that active discussions will take place in the future so that a reasonable choice can be made on the level of law enforcement that is appropriate for our market situation