FTC to lower penalties against oil companies by 69 bil. won

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) plans to forgive 69 billion won out of a total of 190.1 billion won in penalties imposed on five oil refineries SK, LG Caltex-Oil, S-Oil, Hyundai Oil, and Inchon Oil or colluding in a bidding to supply oil to the army.

The FTC said in a report Thursday that it accepted a formal objection from the oil companies and decided to cut the penalties. An FTC official explained, he decided to lower the penalties since the FTC last month filed an additional complaint with the prosecution against six executives of the oil refineries and two companies LG Caltex-Oil and S-Oil.

The FTC decided to lower the penalty from the original 5% of the bidding contract amount for the coming three years to 2.5-4%. Under the FTC decision, the penalties against SK, Inchon Oil, and Hyundai Oil were reduced from 47.5 billion won to 28.5 billion won each, and those on LG Caltex-Oil and S-Oil from 23.8 billion won to 17.8 billion won, respectively.

Choi Young-Hae moneychoi@donga.com