Antitrust chief nominee to closely monitor platform comapanies
Joh Sung-wook / Yonhap
President Moon Jae-in's pick to lead South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday that she will closely monitor platform firms over their possible abuse of an information monopoly.
Joh Sung-wook, a professor of business administration at Seoul National University, said unfair trade practices in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector is also one of her main concerns.
"I think that an information monopoly and the use of monopolistic status by platform companies could be problematic, and this merits further research and probe," Joh said in her first meeting with reporters after being nominated by Moon earlier this month to head the Fair Trade Commission.
The antitrust regulator has been looking into alleged unfair trade practices in two U.S. tech giants ― Google Inc. and Apple Inc. ― as well as South Korea's top portal operator, Naver Corp., Joh said, adding the agency will come up with results that will facilitate market innovation.
Joh did not give any further details on the probes.
It remains unclear whether ongoing probes into Google and Apple are separate from recent probes.
In May, Google corrected some of its terms of service after being probed by the commission.
In July, Apple Korea, the South Korean unit of U.S. tech giant Apple Inc., offered to carry out a set of voluntary corrective measures in an apparent move to end a legal dispute over its alleged violation of competition law.
The nominee said the commission will tackle lingering practices by large companies to award lucrative business contracts to their subsidiaries.
South Korea has been pushing to crack down on unfair business practices and to level the playing field for smaller firms in a country that has been dominated by family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebol, for decades.
Joh, if she gets past a parliamentary confirmation hearing, would be the first female to lead South Korea's antitrust commission in 38 years. No hearing date has been set.
The parliamentary confirmation hearing is widely seen as a formality because her formal appointment does not require approval from the National Assembly. (Yonhap)