News / Shipping lines now exempt from antitrust action in South Korea

Liner operators are to be protected from facing antitrust action for collectively imposing freight charges, after South Korean lawmakers passed an amendment to the Shipping Act.

Following a plenary session held by the National Assembly’s Agriculture, Food and Maritime Affairs Committee, lawmakers voted on the amendment proposed by Lee Won-taek and Yoon Joon-byung of the ruling Democratic party.

The move comes more than four years after the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) investigated and fined 23 local and overseas liner operators for fixing freight on South Korea-South-east Asia routes.

The shipping lines challenged the aggregate $81m fine in the Seoul High Court, which in 2024 ruled in their favour, only for the KFTC to successfully appeal to the Supreme Court early this year. The Supreme Court agreed with the KFTC that the Shipping Act at the time did not immunise the shipping industry from the Fair Trade Act.

The amendment to the Shipping Act means the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries will supervise shipping line joint actions and the KFTC will no longer have any right to interfere.

In addition, the proviso to the Shipping Act requiring liner operators to report collective actions to the KFTC was repealed in the 1 December session.

Korea Shipowners’ Association vice-chairman Yang Chang-ho said: “This amendment will be an important milestone for the South Korean shipping industry to end the exhausting legal debate and focus on stabilising the global supply chain on an equal basis with developed countries.”

The changes to the Shipping Act synchronises the country with other states that have given liner operators a free hand in imposing freight rates. In the US, shipping lines are exempt from antitrust action, and the Federal Maritime Commission monitors shipping companies’ joint actions.

In 2008, the EU abolished the conference system, as major container lines organised themselves into alliances.