The amount of sanctions against large domestic companies last year was KRW 224.8 billion, and the size of the Fair Trade Commission’s sanctions decreased by 90% compared to two years ago.

[비즈니스포스트] The total amount of sanctions received by large domestic companies from domestic and foreign regulatory authorities amounted to 224.8 billion won, a decrease of one-quarter compared to two years ago. The scale of Fair Trade Commission sanctions has been reduced to one-tenth.

The Corporate Data Research Institute’s CEO Score announced on the 24th that this was the result of a survey of sanctions status from 2021 to 2023 targeting 236 companies among the top 500 companies by sales that disclosed sanctions status over the past three years.

 

The amount of sanctions these companies received decreased by 75.8% from KRW 930.2 billion in 2021, and by 51.8% compared to the previous year (KRW 466.5 billion).

During this period, the size of sanctions imposed by domestic regulatory authorities decreased to KRW 752.7 billion in 2021, KRW 365.1 billion in 2022, and KRW 166.1 billion in 2023. Sanctions from overseas regulatory authorities decreased to KRW 177.4 billion in 2021, KRW 101.4 billion in 2022, and KRW 58.7 billion in 2023.

There was a noticeable decrease in sanctions from the domestic Fair Trade Commission. The amount of sanctions imposed by the Fair Trade Commission, which reached 388.1 billion won in 2021, decreased by 89.7% to about 40 billion won last year.

Last year, Shinhan Bank had the largest amount of sanctions by company at 33.6 billion won. This was followed by Youngone Trading with 19.9 billion won and Hana Bank with 19.6 billion won. Shinhan Bank was regulated for violating mandatory anti-money laundering regulations for U.S. corporations, and Hana Bank was regulated for reasons such as non-performing sales.

Accumulated over the past three years, Hyundai Steel had the largest amount at 191.5 billion won. Of the sanctions imposed on Hyundai Steel, 177.6 billion won (92.7%) is the fine received from the Fair Trade Commission. A fine was imposed for colluding in the standard price for purchasing steel scrap (scrap metal) and colluding in bids for rebar ordered by the Public Procurement Service.

Next, Samsung Heavy Industries received 172.5 billion won in sanctions. Most of this was used for settlement money paid to the Brazilian authorities for problems that occurred in the process of receiving an order for three drill ships from the Brazilian energy company Petroblas.

Hotel Lotte was fined 154.1 billion won. These are all corporate tax surcharges for the 2018 fiscal year implemented by the National Tax Service in 2021.

Asiana Airlines was imposed the fourth highest penalty (KRW 28.9 billion). Most of it is a surcharge paid to the National Tax Service.

Of the 102.1 billion won in sanctions imposed on Samsung Electronics, 101.2 billion won (99.1%) was imposed by the Fair Trade Commission. In 2021, a fine of 101.2 billion won was paid for violating the ban on unfair trade practices related to group meal transactions with Samsung Welstory.

This was followed by Dongkuk Holdings (KRW 96.4 billion), Daehan Steel (KRW 63.8 billion), Korean Air (KRW 56.1 billion), Shinhan Bank (KRW 41.8 billion), and NAVER (KRW 36.4 billion).

The number of companies with sanctions exceeding 10 billion won decreased from 12 in 2021 to 9 in 2022 and 7 in 2023. Reporter Baram Kim