Over the past five years, Lotte Group was the South Korean conglomerate that received the highest number of sanctions from the nation’s antitrust watchdog, data showed Friday.

According to the data supplied by Rep. Chun Hae-chul of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, the Fair Trade Commission sanctioned Lotte on 81 occasions between 2014 and 2018. The group that received the next-greatest number of sanctions was Hyundai Motor Group with 76, followed by Kolon Group with 63, SK Group with 57 and Hyosung Group with 52.



Violations of antitrust and fair trade laws were at their peak in 2014 with 86 cases. The number declined to 60 in 2015, 42 in 2016, 11 in 2017 and four in 2018.

But violations of laws on subcontracting increased during the same time frame, from 10 cases in 2014 to 36 cases last year. Last year Hyundai Motor faced 16 FTC sanctions over violations of laws on subcontracting, the largest number issued against a large company for that reason.

“In the past five years, violations of the Fair Trade Act by large corporations have declined, but subcontracting violations have tended to increase,” said Rep. Chun.

“An active investigation by the FTC is needed to protect subcontractors who are in a position worse than that of large corporations,” he added. 

By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)