이 누리집은 대한민국 공식 전자정부 누리집입니다.

한상넷

비즈니스 정보

Biz News Korea(Eng)

FTC mulls regulation to make chaebols’ royalty charges transparent

Collected: 2017.10.19

Distributed: 2017.10.20

Source: Go Direct

The South Korean government is mulling to toughen disclosure and other guidelines on royalty charging to make the country’s family-run conglomerates more transparent and consistent in the way they collect fees from affiliates and subsidiaries for use of their group trademarks.

Ruling Democratic Party Rep. Kim Hae-young upon studying royalty earnings of large companies reported to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) claimed that there was no trademark royalty guideline which could be abused to fatten the pockets of chaebol owners.

FTC Chairman Kim Sang-jo is said to have ordered the FTC to come up with measures to correct unfair and questionable royalty charges of chaebol entities.

Among top chaebol entities that fall under FTC scrutiny, LG and SK Group collected 200 billion won ($176 million) to 300 billion won in royalties from their business units, while CJ and GS Group earned 50 billion won to 100 billion won in 2014.

Holding entities are entitled to earn royalties from subsidiaries. But how much they charge has been random as there are no guidelines on trademark rate.

But further regulations by the new government already labeled as anti-chaebol could spark criticism and controversy about excess intervention.

The FTC and authorities may instead toughen disclosure system so that large holding companies become clearer about royalty revenue.

By Seok Min-soo, Kim Hyo-sung and Choi Mira

Read in Korean

List

Previous: Whirlpool calls for 50% tariffs on Samsung, LG washers

Next: S-Oil Q3 OP expected to more than quadruple on year