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The new head of South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said Monday hewould meet top officials of the nation’s four largest business groupsthis week to communicate with them over the Moon Jae-ingovernment’s drive for chaebol reform. 

Kim Sang-jo was appointed as FTC chairman by President Moon Jae-in last week, despite strong objection from conservative oppositionparties. When named as the nominee for FTC chief a month ago, hehad vowed to enhance monitoring of the four largest conglomerateshere -- Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG. 

“I will first seek to meet the four largest groups as soon as possible, within this week,” Kim said at a press conference in the governmentadministrative city of Sejong.

“By explaining the president’s campaign pledges and enhancing policypredictability, I will start dialogue between the government and thebusiness community.”

Kim said he had conveyed his intention to the Korea Chamber ofCommerce and Industry to meet either the chairmen or CEOs of thefour groups.

Dubbed “chaebol sniper” by the local media for his longtimeshareholder activism, Kim has described chaebol as “the Koreaneconomy’s cherished assets.”

Rather than the FTC strictly regulating chaebol, Kim said he hopesconglomerates will voluntarily seek changes according to the demandsof society and the market.

Kim noted that the FTC has been closely monitoring 45 of the biggestconglomerates with more than 500 trillion won ($441.9 billion) in assetsand 225 of their affiliates on whether there has been any wrongdoing intheir internal transactions since March. 

“Regardless of the size of the company, the FTC will strictly deal withany legal violations during our analysis,” Kim said.

As for his previous remarks on enhancing monitoring of the four-largest conglomerates, he said “there was no measure prepared indetail yet.”

The FTC is also investigating the 45 conglomerates on whether any ofthem are coercing unfair deals with subcontractors and small andmedium-sized enterprises.

He also said his plan to expand the FTC’s current business groupdivision into a business group bureau to better monitor such unfairdeals is expected to be completed in late July, as the plan needs policycoordination with the Interior Ministry and the Finance Ministry.

The former director of Solidarity for Economic Reform, a civic group, said the FTC would not directly intervene with the market, unless thereis any price collusion or abuse of a company’s dominant market power.

Local fried chicken franchise BBQ recently decided to withdraw its planto raise its chicken price, after the FTC announced that it wouldinvestigate the company to see if it was abusing its power to shift theburden of marketing to franchise shop operators.

“The FTC does not manage prices. It does not have the authority tointervene in the market price, unless there is (power) abuse or (price) collusion.”

By Kim Yoon-mi ([email protected])