전력산업과 공정거래법

Abstract

In every industrialized country it has been normal practice for governments to

involve themselves in the energy business, and especially in the activities of the

electricity industry. In Korea the government has not only engaged in the

electricity industry, but also regulated the industry since 1960. Although the

government has endeavored to restructure and deregulate the electricity industry

since 1980, the industry is still owned by public enterprises and remains as

regulated industry. The electricity industry is still in the process of restructuring

and transforming from regulated industry to competitive one.

On the other hands, Korea enacted the fair trade laws such as Monopoly

Regulation and Fair Trade Act in 1981 and Fair Subcontract Transactions Act in

1986 and Adhesion Contract Regulation Act in 1987 to ensure free competition

and fair trade in the markets. However, the fair trade laws have been not

applied to the electricity industry until 1986. Fair Trade Commission began to

apply the laws to the electricity industry, after the government encouraged to

restructure public enterprises and deregulate electricity industry in 1990.

This paper aims to analyse the various cases which the Fair Trade

Commission and the Supreme Court applied the fair trade laws to the activities

of electricity industry. For this purpose the paper started to describe the

characteristics of electricity industry and then explained briefly the outlines of

fair trade laws. This paper recognized that most of decisions and judgements of

the Commission and the Supreme Court are focused on the abuse of market

dominant position and unfair trade practices, unfair conditions of contract by the...