▲ The Fair Trade Commission imposed a correction order and a penalty of 16 million won for actions that Swick Co., Ltd. entrusted the manufacturing of ship blocks to subcontractors, delayed issuing contracts and unfairly determined subcontracting payments.[기계신문] The Fair Trade Commission imposed a correction order and a penalty of 16 million won for actions that Swick Co., Ltd. entrusted the manufacturing of ship blocks to subcontractors, delayed issuing contracts and unfairly determined subcontracting payments.
On January 17, 2017, Swick signed an annual unit price contract with a supplier and reduced the unit price of 4 items by 3 million won compared to the previous year due to the worsening shipbuilding economy and the request of the orderer to reduce the unit price (63 → 60 million won).
In order for the act of lowering the unit price at a uniform rate to be a legitimate reason, it must be determined based on objective and reasonable grounds, or when it is more favorable to the contractor than the individual unit price determination.
However, Swick Co., Ltd. did not consider the content, difficulty, and required time of each item, and reduced the unit price at a uniform rate without objective and reasonable grounds, and it was not advantageous to the contractor.
In addition, Swick Co., Ltd. commissioned two subcontractors to manufacture ship block equipment from December 2015 to January 2018, and issued 57 contracts late.
Before the contractor starts working, a contract must be issued that includes important information such as product name, weight, and subcontracting cost, but is issued after 1 to 168 days. As the work proceeded, the procedural right to prevent disputes was not guaranteed.
Accordingly, the Fair Trade Commission ordered Swick Co., Ltd. not to repeat the same or similar actions in the future, and decided to impose a penalty of 16 million won for delayed issuance of documents.
Through this incident, it was confirmed that the conventional unfair subcontracting transaction of the’pre-installation and post-contract’ method of the shipbuilding industry continues. Sanctions were imposed on lowering the unit price at a uniform rate to compensate for the loss.
An official of the Fair Trade Commission said, “We plan to work with the industry to continuously monitor unfair subcontracting activities in the shipbuilding industry and to correct wrong practices.”
Machinery News, Machinery Industry News Channel
Reporter Kwon Hyuk-jae [email protected]