S Korea to enforce stricter regulation on cartel activities: FTC head

South Korea plans to enforce stricter rules on domestic cartel activities in order to eliminate unfair practices in the market, head of the nation's antitrust watchdog said Friday.

"We plan to beef up regulatory efforts on cartel-related activities down the road," Chung Ho-yul, chief of the Fair Trade Commission, said at a local forum with business leaders.

Chung warned that some companies' habitual cartel activities may bring about a huge amount of penalties, once detected by foreign regulators.

"The FTC is partly blamed since we were late in providing a correct guideline so that firms could have a chance to train themselves," Chung said.

Chung also said he plans to meet with leaders of major industries later this year or early next year to get straight on his point, as well as encouraging them on refraining from such activities.

Meanwhile, he also mentioned on the ongoing investigation into price fixing allegations among liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) firms, saying the level of punishment is to be decided at a meeting next week.

The FTC head earlier said at an annual audit that the size of the fine on the firms would reach around 1 trillion won (856.1 million U.S. dollars).

Source: Xinhua