South Korea's publishing industry is preparing a joint damages suit against major domestic paper makers over price fixing in printing paper. Publishers moved to act together after paper companies sought to raise printing paper prices even though the Fair Trade Commission had found six of them guilty of collusion and ordered them to reset their prices.
A committee formed to pursue the joint lawsuit said at a news conference at the National Assembly's media center on the 12th that it would bring a class-action-style damages claim against the paper makers by bringing together publishers and other buyers that suffered losses. The committee includes the Korean Publishers Association and the Korea Publishers Society, the country's two largest publishing groups. It plans to open public recruitment of participating publishers on the 13th and to file the suit in December. The committee said the average domestic selling price of printing paper soared 71% during the collusion period, to 1.439 million won per ton from 841,000 won. Related sales came to about 4.03 trillion won ($2.8 billion), and the unfair losses borne by the publishing industry and the public are estimated at more than 400 billion won ($280 million), it said. The committee added that it would use the lawsuit to document the damage from the collusion in detail and recover the profits the paper makers had unfairly taken.
The Fair Trade Commission in April imposed fines totaling 338.3 billion won ($235 million) on six paper makers, including Hansol Paper and Moorim, over printing paper collusion and ordered them to reset prices. Some of the companies then asked a court to suspend the price-reset order, and the court granted the request. Rep. Han Chang-min, a co-host of the news conference, said such conduct — seeking a court suspension and attempting price increases despite the commission's sanctions and reset order — could no longer be left unchecked, and that a class-action system and punitive damages were needed to provide relief and deterrence beyond what he called token fines. Rep. Kim Jae-won said the government should respond responsibly to correct prices distorted by collusion and prevent the same harm from recurring.