Spancom Co., Ltd. (Law Firm Leesan, Attorneys Yu-soo et al., Counsel for the defendant-appellant)

Korea Information and Communications Co., Ltd and 16 others (Law Firm Hun-Ga et al., Counsel for the plaintiff-appellant)

March 19, 2013 (Defendant 11 to 17), August 29, 2013 (Defendant 1 to 10),

Seoul Central District Court Decision 201Gahap95248 Decided August 17, 2012

1. All appeals by the Defendants are dismissed.

2. The costs of appeal are assessed against the Defendants.

1. Purport of claim

The defendants pay to each plaintiff 288,956,810 won with 5% interest per annum from December 6, 2007 to the last day of the copy of the complaint of this case against the defendants, and 20% interest per annum from the next day to the day of complete payment.

2. Purport of appeal

The part against the Defendants in the judgment of the first instance is revoked, and the Plaintiff’s claim corresponding to the above revocation part is dismissed in entirety.

1. Quotation of judgment of the first instance;

The reasoning for this Court’s reasoning is as follows, and this Court’s reasoning is cited by the main text of Article 420 of the Civil Procedure Act, since it is the same as the reasoning for the first instance judgment, except for modification or addition as follows.

2. Parts to be dried;

○ The following parts shall be added, following the 29th page 15:

As to this, Defendant Korea Credit Card Settlement, which was recognized by the Fair Trade Commission, did not apply the fee of 50 won or less to December 5, 2007, from March 2005 to December 5, 2007, which is the collusion period recognized by the Fair Trade Commission. Unlike other VN companies, the Fair Trade Commission asserts that Defendant Korea Credit Card Settlement was not involved in the collaborative act since it reduced by 10%.

However, according to the statements Eul 21, Eul's evidence 22, Eul 23, and Eul 23's evidence 23, the defendant's Korea Credit Card Settlement is a member of the VN Council, and the above council participated in sending a proposal related to DC fee reduction to defendant credit card companies during the period from December 21, 2004 to January 12, 2005, and the regular high-ranking decoration was allowed to attend the agreement on March 3, 2005, and the fee was reduced to 60,55,50 won as of January 1, 206. Thus, the defendant's Korea Credit Card Settlement also participated in the unfair collaborative act of defendant VN companies in accordance with the agreement on March 3, 2005. The above assertion by the defendant's credit card settlement is without merit.

The part of section 34 (c) shall be dried as follows:

As to this, Defendant credit card companies’ determination of the reduction of the DNA capture fees is the issue that may be entirely determined by negotiations or contracts between the Plaintiff and Defendant VN companies. Defendant credit card companies without any contractual relationship or transaction relationship with the Plaintiff did not have the right to participate therein, and Plaintiff’s losses occurred due to the involvement of Defendant VN companies in separate causes, such as the agreement on March 3, 2005, and Defendant VN companies’ closure of the lawsuit, the difficulty in calculating losses, the risk of double compensation, etc. Therefore, the claim for damages arising from the collusion can be made only by the direct buyers, and the claim for damages by the same indirect buyers as the Plaintiff should not be recognized. Defendant Samsung Card agreed before January 12, 2005 that the market share would be reduced to 40%, and thus, Defendant Samsung Card did not have reached an agreement between Defendant 1 and 205.12.5% of the instant agreement between the Plaintiff and the Plaintiff in light of the characteristics of the DC market and the Plaintiff’s remaining damages.

Since it is reasonably anticipated that the direct purchaser will transfer to indirect purchasers of SamsungN’s product price in excess of the fair price, there is room to acknowledge proximate causal relation between the act of collusion and the damage of indirect purchasers, if the direct purchaser intervenes in selling the product by raising the price. If the indirect purchaser denies the right to compensation for damages, it would be unreasonable to compel indirect purchasers to sacrifice unjust enrichment, and the indirect purchaser would have to bear inconvenience to demand a return of unjust enrichment again. It would be more appropriate to determine the propriety of the right to compensation for damages by examining individual and specific causal relation and intentional negligence with the indirect purchaser rather than to uniformly deny the right to compensation for damages. From 00, the main sentence of Article 56(1) of the Fair Trade Act provides that “the person who suffered damage by an enterpriser or an enterprisers’ organization in violation of the provisions of this Act” in light of the structure of settlement of credit cards in Korea, and the specific content of the e-mails’s e-mails’s e-mail conversion to the entire e-mails’s e-mail reduction market.

○ 46, No. 11, “I am,” and the following parts through 15, are the following:

During the period from March 12, 2005 to December 2007, when there was no agreement in this case, the fact that the virtual competitive price of the virtual price of the DNA capture fee was 61.87 won, and the factors that could affect the reduction of the fee, such as the relative distribution rate of the DSSC services, were used as an explanatory variable, and the Defendant credit card company assessed the virtual competitive price. The above facts alone do not appear to have been under the circumstance that the Defendant credit card company would withdraw from or reverse the agreement by December 12, 2007, and paid the fee reduced by the agreement in its original form. Thus, it is difficult to conclude that the damage caused by each agreement in this case was terminated before December 5, 2007. On any other premise, it is difficult to accept the above assertion by Defendant Hyundai Card, Defendant VNO (excluding Defendant 6).

○ The number of pages 50, 19 shall be added as follows:

D) As to the above, if Defendant KSS information and communications conducted the above service through a person in charge of collecting sales slips (i.e., a self-agency or drawer’s name; hereinafter “self-agency”), it cannot be deemed that the parent agency was merely the deliveryer of the draft capture fee to its own agency and actually suffered losses due to the Defendants’ collusion. Thus, in the transaction related to Defendant KSS information and communications, the number of transaction cases, which are the basis for calculating the Plaintiff’s losses, should be excluded from the number of transaction cases, which are the Plaintiff’s own agencies.

In full view of the overall purport of the arguments, Gap evidence 5-2, Gap evidence 13-1 through 3, Gap evidence 15-1 through 39, Gap evidence 16-1, and Eul evidence 16-2, the plaintiff agreed that the plaintiff shall be responsible for all of the problems arising from the plaintiff's own agency and fee between the defendant Gap Gap Gap Gap Gap Gap Gap Gap's information and communication. Even if according to the contract entered into with the plaintiff, the credit card sales slip distribution and collection, and DC services are all of the plaintiff's duties. Accordingly, the plaintiff is entrusted with all of the management affairs of the member stores kept by the community credit cooperatives by the community credit cooperatives, and the community credit cooperatives did not pay separate Doft capture fees to the defendant. In light of these facts, the plaintiff's assertion that each of the contracts of this case did not cause damage to the plaintiff's own agency and fee, but did not cause damage to the defendant's community credit cooperatives.

3. Conclusion

Therefore, the plaintiff's claim is justified within the above scope of recognition, and the judgment of the court of first instance is just, and the defendant's appeal is dismissed as it is without merit. It is so decided as per Disposition.

Judges Yoon Jin (Presiding Judge)