Korea Rejects Antitrust Settlements for Delivery Apps

🔑 Enhanced Key Takeaways

• •The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) rejected the settlement bids, known as consent decrees, because the proposed voluntary remedies, which included co-prosperity funds, were deemed insufficient to address the alleged significant competitive restrictions.
• •The antitrust probe focuses on several alleged anti-competitive practices, including 'most-favored-nation' clauses that coerced restaurants into offering equivalent or lower prices on their platforms, preferential treatment for proprietary delivery services, unfair advertising regarding delivery times, and tying of services like Coupang Eats with its 'Wow Membership'.
• •Baedal Minjok and Coupang Eats had offered substantial funds, totaling 360 billion won (approximately $240 million), as part of their rejected settlement proposals to avoid penalties, with Baemin proposing 300 billion won and Coupang 60 billion won.
• •Following the rejection, both companies now face a formal review process, with potential fines estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of won, including up to 510 billion won for Baemin and potentially hundreds of billions for Coupang if found guilty of tying.
• •The KFTC specifically alleges that Baemin manipulated estimated delivery times on its main interface to make its proprietary 'Baemin Delivery' appear faster than its merchant-led 'Store Delivery' service, and that Coupang forced the use of Coupang Eats on consumers of its online shopping service through integrated membership systems.

🔮 Future ImplicationsAI analysis grounded in cited sources

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