South Korea to delay action against shippers

SEOUL: South Korea’s antitrust regulator plans to put off its review of punitive measures over shippers’ alleged collusions to fix freight rates, as some foreign players have faced difficulty in doing business amid Covid-19 lockdowns in China, industry officials have said.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating allegations that around 20 domestic and foreign shippers colluded to fix higher freight rates for the South Korea-China and South Korea-Japan sea routes since early 2000.

The FTC was supposed to hold a deliberation session to decide the level of its punitive measures on April 27-28 after collecting opinions from the shippers by last Friday.

But the regulator plans to delay the session as Chinese firms have faced challenges in preparing counter-arguments. It has imposed 96.2 billion won (US$78.2mil or RM331mil) in fines on 23 Korean and foreign shippers for collusion to fix freight costs for South-East Asian sea routes. — The Korea Herald/ANN