The competition authorities will completely abolish the cap on reward payments for internal whistleblowing of unfair practices such as collusion, in an effort to encourage more internal reporting. The payment rate will also be revised, making it possible for whistleblowers to receive rewards worth hundreds of billions of won for reporting large-scale cases.
On June 17, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) announced that it has revised the “Regulations on Reward Payments to Whistleblowers of Violations of the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, etc.” and that the new rules will take effect from June 18.
With this revision, the previous cap on reward payments, which was limited to 3 billion won, will be removed. The KFTC explained that, for example, if the recent wheat flour price-fixing case involving milling companies had been reported with the highest level of evidence, the whistleblower could have received up to 67.1 billion won, which is 10% of the total 671 billion won in fines imposed.
This represents a significant increase compared to the previous maximum reward, which was approximately 1.75 billion won paid for the 2021 rebar scrap price-fixing case under the former regulations.
The revised regulations also expand the scope of evidence recognized for unfair support or private interest appropriation. Previously, only information related to “transaction details” or “transaction conditions” was accepted, but now information related to “intent to provide support”...
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