Korea Fair Trade Commission to tighten public bidding restrictions

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) has announced a proposal to tighten restrictions on companies that repeatedly engage in bid rigging for public contracts. Under the proposed amendment to the guidelines for unfair concerted actions in bidding, the period for assessing repeated collusion will be extended from five years to ten years.

Additionally, the threshold for requesting a restriction on bidding eligibility will be lowered from a cumulative penalty score of more than five points to four points or more. The new rules will also incorporate penalty points from all types of collusion, not just those specifically related to bidding. For example, a company receiving corrective orders twice would accumulate four points, making it subject to eligibility restrictions.

The KFTC intends to implement these changes on January 1, 2025, following an administrative notice period ending December 12. To prevent retroactive application issues, the current regulations will continue to apply to penalty points incurred before the new guidelines take effect until December 31, 2031.