The Seoul Central District Court dished out a total of over 3.5 trillion won ($3.1 billion) to ten construction companies rigging the tender bids for LNG storage tank construction jobs.
According to the initial charges, the companies have been agreeing among themselves to split contracts for 12 liquefied natural gas storage tanks built during the period from 2005 to 2012 in South Korea’s three provinces.
Fines of 160 million won were handed to Daewoo Engineering & Construction, Daelim Industrial, Hyundai Engineering & Construction and GS Engineering & Construction, South Korean news agency Yonhap reports.
Fines in the amounts ranging between 20 to 140 million won were handed out to another six companies.
The company officials that were charged with rigging the bidding process have also been given fines ranging between 5 and 30 million won.
The court ruled that the companies “colluded and impeded competition in order to maximize profits,” adding this was against the country’s monopoly regulations act.
The court also took into consideration the fact that the Fair Trade Commission had already penalized the companies with 351.6 billion won.
1 KRW = 0.000897302 USD
LNG World News Staff