Posted October. 02, 2000 21:24,
Following the largest-ever penalty levied for the price fixing of military supply oil by 5 oil refiners last month, the Fair Trade Commission will also investigate the oil refiners to find out whether they colluded when determining consumer prices.
Since the report in Donga Newspaper, the FTC has found that oil refiners have sold military-use oil in the private consumption market at charges 40 times higher than military supply prices since the liberalization of prices.
The FTC has also discovered with the support of regional offices nationwide that oil refiners had fixed prices and also blocked the entry of petroleum product importers. Investigations are being conducted into whether the head office has given such orders.
Based on the evidence, the FTC will send investigation teams to SK, LG Petroleum, Hyundai Oil Refining, S-Oil and Incheon Oil Refining to make on-site probes.
An official from the FTC revealed that collusion relating to consumer prices is a more serious problem than the price-fixing of military-use oil and hence investigations are proceeding with considerable difficulty due to the strong action being taken by oil refiners. The probe will focus on ascertaining whether prices were determined by going along with prices offered by major market players such as SK and LG or if there was an actual collusion in fixing prices.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Defense is planning to file a lawsuit for compensation of damages against the oil refiners, separate from the FTC measures, and legal consultations are taking place.
A Ministry of Defense legal department official revealed that the aside from the penalty fine, efforts are being made to recover the excess amount paid due to the exorbitant prices. As the compensation amount will have to include the bidding made this year, the recovery amount will be larger than the 120 billion won recommended by the Board of Audit and Inspection, which only accounts for 1998 and 1999.