The Fair Trade Commission, the nation’s top antitrust organization whose main job is to ensure fair competition in the markets, is fretting over independent candidate Ahn Cheol-soo’s ideas to install a presidential office for keeping chaebol in check.
As Ahn announced earlier this week, the committee would be installed directly under the presidential office for efficiency’s sake ― meaning it would be designed so the president could keep tabs on all committee operations.
For the FTC, this could mean that it would be stripped of its responsibilities and authority.
“It will start out as a presidential committee, but it will naturally begin to gain more power as the president will be directly involved, and if the committee is in charge of chaebol, the next step will be to broaden its horizons to other related areas, such as the subcontractors who are contracted by the conglomerates, then to yet more issues, such as mutual growth policies,” said one FTC official on the condition of anonymity.
Mutual growth policies are those desingned to create a more level playing field for small and mid-sized firms.
The FTC had played a central role in the project until now.
Conglomerate reform is one of Ahn’s central election pledges, and he has now put it in print. The seven top pledges include enacting tightened laws against all illegal activities committed by owner families, keeping the chaebol away from competing with mom-and-pop stores and banning conglomerates from acquiring too much debt.
Ahn also is calling for the fair trade law to be renovated to better protect the rights of smaller firms and consumers, while rearranging the financial authorities.
The is to address the criticism that local fair trade laws were drafted and revised in favor of conglomerates who lobby the government.
Fines, for instance, fail utterly in subduing companies because 90 percent of the time, they win the ensuing administrative litigations they routinely issue against the government because the laws are written in the corporate sector’s favor, experts say. Victory means no fines. In fact, the government ends up reimbursing the companies for their legal expenses.
The FTC is also under fire for placing more priority on its own well-being, rather than the good of the public.
“The officials are worried only about their own necks, which is why they fear Ahn’s ideas for the committee,” said one industry watcher, speaking anonymously.
At the beginning of the Lee Myung-bak administration, the FTC had appeared close to its demise when the incoming government said it would consider reducing and downgrading the organization.
Currently, the committee chairman is of minister level and can sit in on all official Cabinet meetings.
