Four years of shared price data carry most of Korea's 4.6 trillion won refinery fine ceiling

Divide 44.1 trillion won by 30 billion won a day and you get 1,470 days, roughly four years ^[3][17]. The sales base is the two refiners' whole gasoline, diesel and kerosene business across the sharing period, February 2022 to March 2026. The shared data covered provisional prices, the final prices settled at the start of the following month, and discount policies ^[2]. According to Seoul Economic Daily, the volume involved in the two March agreements is understood to be smaller ^[4].

At the 10.5% rate, each day of that period adds 3.15 billion won to the ceiling ^[18]. Reaching 4.6305 trillion won means the commission applies the top rate to the information sharing as well as to the two agreements on actual prices ^[8][22].

The report is the FTC's equivalent of a prosecutor's indictment, and the commission sets the sanction only after deliberation ^[1]. It can adopt the report whole and fine close to the ceiling. It can set a lower rate for the information exchange than for the March agreements, and then the bill falls a long way, because the information count is the larger part of the base ^[4]. Or it can accept the refiners' case on the information count and shrink the matter toward the two agreements.

HD Hyundai Oilbank has an answer for each count. On the information exchange, a company official said: "All the information exchanged was already publicly available or could be obtained through various channels." ^[15] On the March agreements, an official said the finding that the company colluded on provisional prices after the war began "is based solely on the one-sided statement of an official at a competitor, and there was no collusion whatsoever" ^[14]. SK Energy said it is closely reviewing the report and will explain its position based on facts ^[16].

The FTC did not disclose how the related sales split between the two companies, and the reports do not include either company's profit, so this record cannot show how a fine compares with earnings. Suppose sales track the 2025 market shares of 28.1% for SK Energy and 21.0% for HD Hyundai Oilbank ^[10]. Then the ceiling divides into about 2.65 trillion won for SK Energy and 1.98 trillion won for HD Hyundai Oilbank ^[21].

The two refiners outside the case, GS Caltex and S-OIL, hold 48.8% between them ^[19], about the same as the accused pair's 49.1% ^[10]. "The two companies have a combined market share of about 50%, so we see this as enough to affect competitive order," said Oh Haeng-rok, head of the FTC's cartel investigation bureau ^[7]. The sharing began just before the Russia-Ukraine war broke out in February 2022 ^[11]. "We believe the two companies began sharing information amid energy price volatility caused by the wars," Oh said, according to Yonhap (which romanises his name Oh Hang-lok) ^[6].

I'd expect the final fine to land well below 4.6 trillion won. To reach the ceiling, the commission would have to fine four years of data exchange at the maximum rate, and HD Hyundai Oilbank says that exchange involved public information ^[8][15]. The case against that view is the report itself. It alleges that setting prices while exchanging information unfairly restricted competition under the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act ^[9], and the FTC has already judged the conduct a serious violation ^[5]. A decision near 4.6 trillion won would mean the commission had treated the information exchange the same as the two March price agreements, and that I was wrong.