Taekyung Chemical and Approtium were ordered to take corrective action and were fined for collusion in the POSCO liquefied carbon dioxide bid.

The Fair Trade Commission (Chairman Han Ki-jung) announced that it has imposed a corrective order and a fine of 42 million won on Approtium and Taekyung Chemical, which manufacture and sell liquefied carbon dioxide, for colluding in advance on the successful bidder and bid price while participating in the bid to purchase liquefied carbon dioxide for the wastewater treatment plant of the Gwangyang Steelworks ordered by POSCO in 2018 and 2019. Approtium was fined 28 million won, and Taekyung Chemical was fined 14 million won.

At the time of the collusion, the names of Aprotium and Taekyung Chemical were ‘Deokyang’ and ‘Taekyung Chemical’, respectively.

Approtium, which has been supplying liquefied carbon dioxide to POSCO since 2017, requested Taekyung Chemical to participate as a subsidiary with the aim of improving profitability.

In the 2017 tender, Approtium had bid at a price close to the manufacturing cost level in order to be selected as a new supplier, which resulted in it earning almost no profit from supplying liquid coal to POSCO's Gwangyang Steelworks.

Accordingly, Approtium sought out a secondary operator to improve profitability by raising the level of the successful bid and to increase the probability of winning the bid. In late 2017, it first reached an agreement on bid rigging in this case with Taekyung Chemical, which had accepted the request for secondary cooperation.

The two companies agreed that Taekyung Chemical would bid at the price requested by Aprotium in order to win the bid for Aprotium, and that if the bid is unsuccessful, the bid price would be set again. In addition, Aprotium agreed to purchase a portion of the liquefied petroleum supply from Taekyung Chemical in return for its cooperation in the case of a successful bid.

In the first bidding held in 2018 (February 19, 2018), Taekyung Chemical submitted a bid at the price requested in advance by Approtium, but the bid was unsuccessful.

Accordingly, Approtium requested Taekyung Chemical to bid at the same price as the first bid in the second bid (February 23, 2018) and third bid (February 28, 2018), and Approtium was ultimately selected as the successful bidder.

In the first and second bidding rounds held in 2019 (February 12 and 13, 2019), Approtium requested Taekyung Chemical to bid at a higher price than its own, Taekyung Chemical did so, and Approtium was selected as the final successful bidder.
/> After the successful bid, Approtium purchased a portion (approximately 8-60%) of POSCO's monthly supply from Taekyung Chemical from April 2018 to June 2019, while the agreement continued.

This measure is the third case in which the Fair Trade Commission has taken action against collusion among market operators related to liquefied carbon dioxide, following actions taken against bid rigging in the purchase of liquefied carbon dioxide ordered by shipbuilders (corrective order and fine of 5.33 billion won in 2022) and dry ice price fixing (corrective order and fine of 4.86 billion won in 2023). It is significant in that it has contributed to eradicating collusion that was customary in the industry.

A Fair Trade Commission official stated, “Going forward, the Fair Trade Commission plans to strengthen its monitoring of collusion that undermines industrial competitiveness across both the front and back ends, and take strict action when violations of the law are discovered.”