The Fair Trade Commission said Monday that it has ordered corrective actions against SK Telecom for using its market position to secure unfair contracts with smaller manufacturers.

The nation’s largest telecom carrier has maintained contracts with 15 subcontractors, through which the company transferred its patented techniques for gap-fillers and received royalties since 2005.

Gap-fillers are land-based transmission facilities that improve the coverage of quality mobile services.

The FTC found, however, SKT had included an unfair clause into the contracts that the royalty payments are maintained regardless of the validity of the patents.

In the opposite case when SKT is provided with a patented technique from its subcontractor, the telecom giant suspended royalty payments when the contract expired, the antitrust regulator added.

“SKT has abused its superior position to reduce risks caused by the expiration of patents. It’s clearly the violation of a related law,” said a FTC official.

“Subcontractors could not reject the unfair proposal from SKT as their sales are up to 96 percent dependent on SK.”

The agency, however, did not issue any other financial penalties as SKT had already reduced the contract clauses in June when related investigations were under way.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)