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| gettyimagesbank |
By Nam Hyun-woo
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| Siemens Korea CEO ChewKong Lum |
The FTC issued correction orders and fines to the two companies for a combined 54 million ($44,103) for the collusion, which occurred in 2015.
The FTC said it found Siemens Korea and Canon Medical Systems Korea agreed to have the latter play a supporting role for the former to win the bid.
As a result, Siemens believed it had a high chance of winning the bid, but was concerned that the bidding would be cancelled because of a possible departure by Canon Medical Systems from the process.
Siemens asked Canon Medical Systems to join the bidding and provided it with some support. After Canon accepted the request, it tendered a price higher than Siemens, which resulted in Siemens winning the bidding at 1.55 billion won.
The FTC said this was a violation of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, which prohibits unfair collaborative activities on deciding successful bidders, bidding prices, or contract prices.
Siemens Korea and Canon Medical Systems Korea were slapped with fines of 33 million won and 21 million won, respectively.
The country's top anti-trust regulator said the punishment bears significance given the companies have colluded in the business of medical devices, which is heavily related to public health.
"Through this measure, we expect to spur fair competition between medical device companies," an FTC official said. "The FTC will spare no efforts to enhance monitoring on the health care and medical industries and will impose strict punishments to violators."
Established in 1989, Siemens Korea reported 556.5 billion won in sales and generated 10.66 billion won in operating profit in 2018. Though its 2018 operating profit declined by 73 percent from a year earlier, its net profit grew two-fold to 171.4 billion won during the same period.
Canon Medical Systems was established in 2009 and posted 35.97 billion won in sales and 1.03 billion won in operating profit in 2018.
Canon Medical Systems Korea was Toshiba Medical Systems Korea at the time of violation. The company was renamed in January 2018 after Canon Group acquired Toshiba's medical unit in December 2016.
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