[자료=공정위 제공]
SK Telecom was sanctioned for reinforcing the economic power of its affiliate SK Broadband by using its market dominance as the number one in the telecommunications industry.
SK Telecom sold a combination of’mobile communication + high-speed Internet + IPTV’ and paid the fee that SK Broadband should bear. As a result, SK Broadband’s market share of IPTV products increased, and financial performance improved rapidly.
The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 24th that SK Telecom has decided to impose a correction order and a total fine of 6,396 billion won for the act of unfairly supporting SK Broadband.
According to the results of the FTC survey, SK Telecom and SK Broadband began to combine SK Telecom’s mobile communications and high-speed Internet products and SK Broadband’s IPTV products through SK Telecom agencies from 2012.
SK Telecom sold IPTV products of SK Broadband in combination with its own mobile communication products from 2016 to 2019, and paid an IPTV sales fee of KRW 19.92 billion. SK Broadband did not receive the commission it had to pay to the SK Telecom agency.
The sales commission is the price that SK Telecom and SK Broadband pay to sales agencies for each product sale.
SK Broadband paid about 90,000 won to SK Telecom’s agency as of 2016 for each IPTV sale. Since then, sales commissions for combined products have increased, but SK Broadband paid only 90,000 won.
[사진= SK브로드밴드]
The two companies decided to share the cost of sales commissions in a post settlement method as there was a concern that the problem of unfair support would be exposed to the outside around 2016. Among the sales commissions paid by SK Telecom to agencies, the amount corresponding to IPTV is calculated, and the amount is paid to SK Telecom by SK Broadband. However, in practice, the cost sharing was not properly achieved.
SK Broadband shared approximately 10.9 billion won in 2016-2017, but SK Telecom made up for the loss of SK Broadband by raising advertising sales equivalent to 9.9 billion won to SK Broadband.
The two companies’ unfair support was to increase the competitiveness and market share of SK Broadband’s IPTV products, which are inferior to competitors, while protecting the mobile communication market in a market situation where the proportion of combined product sales increases.
Jeong Jin-wook, head of the Corporate Group of the Fair Trade Commission, said, “SK Telecom paid part of the sales commission in consideration of the situation of SK Broadband, which was experiencing financial limitations. It was a situation where there was insufficient funding.”
SK Telecom’s support has been of practical effect. IPTV sales through SK Telecom agencies accounted for about 49% of SK Broadband’s total IPTV sales as of 2019.
Both companies were aware that their form of transaction could constitute an unfair support act. SK Telecom has repeatedly stated that there is a risk of unfair support if the current transaction structure is maintained in SK Broadband, which was confirmed by the FTC investigation.
“The two companies used SK Telecom’s mobile telecommunications influence for the growth of SK Broadband’s IPTV,” said Jung. “Much of the IPTV competitive advantage is based on SK Telecom’s influence and financial power in the mobile telecommunications market.” did.
[자료=공정위 제공]
Accordingly, the Fair Trade Commission imposed a penalty of KRW 3,198 billion each of SK Telecom and SK Broadband of KRW 6,396 billion, and issued an injunction in the future.
The FTC saw that the seriousness of the violations of the laws of both companies was weak and applied a 20% penalty rate. This is because SK Telecom and SK Broadband settle some amounts afterwards, and that SK Telecom had the purpose of defense in the mobile communication market in terms of combined sales.
SK Telecom said, “The company’s share of the sales fees for combined products including IPTV is to respond to competition in the mobile phone market through the sale of combined products, and is not for unfair support.” “I plan to step on”.