SEOUL, KOREA - The Korea Fair Trade Commission chairman Noh Dae-lae hinted that his commission may impose sanctions on Kakao Inc. On August 28 in a press conference, Mr. Noh said, "The commission is currently investigating Kakao's business area expansion." "If a company excludes other rivals or blocks market entries using its dominant market power, it constitutes violation of competition laws," he added.
He further said, "Large companies like SK Planet becomes a supplier when it comes to the mobile business. If predatory behavior is left unchecked, it will disrupt health development of the market," strongly suggesting that the regulator is willing to apply sanctions on the mobile messenger company.
The Fair Trade Commission is looking into a case in which Kakao cancelled contracts with mobile gift certificate sellers on its KakaoTalk messenger. Starting on July 1, Kakao is selling its own mobile gift certificates at the expense of the four sellers including SK Planet, KT MHows, CJ E&M, and OneCube Marketing.
These sellers claimed that they had depended on KakaoTalk for 50-90 percent of their sales revenue. An SK Planet official said, "Kakao used to advocate win-win relationship and now it tries to kill other partners and take the whole pie to itself, which is hard to understand."
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