South Korea fined Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. 970 million won (US$805,000) for unfair trade with its subcontractors. The fine is the biggest-ever for acts of misusing technologies from other companies.
According to Yonhap news agency, Hyundai Heavy has stolen technologies used in the production of pistons that are used on ship diesel engines from its subcontractor.
In addition, it secretly shared the technology with another subcontractor to reduce the price of products supplied by its original subcontractor, Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said.
After managing to reduce pistons’ prices by passing the technologies to another subcontractor in 2016, Hyundai Heavy cut trade with its original subcontractor one year later.
The original subcontractor’s sales declined 57% three months, who later reported the unfair trade to police and the country’s antitrust watchdog.
