The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating Samsung Electronics and other Samsung affiliates since 2018 on charges of allegations that Samsung Group provided unfair support for Samsung Welstory, the country's largest cafeteria service provider.
Four of the group affiliates including Samsung Electronics, Samsung Display, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Samsung SDI are suspected of providing favorable conditions over Samsung Well Story's competitors for Samsung Well Story to do its in-house cafeteria business.
Samsung Group accordingly submitted its remedial measures to the FTC. The measures included opening up their cafeteria business at more than 50 in-house cafeterias to outside players.
The measures also included its plans to prioritize small and medium-sized enterprises when selecting companies to run in-house cafeteria.
As a way to support win-win, Samsung proposed support for the establishment of smart factories and support of investment funds to 375 small and medium-sized companies for meals and food materials by creating win-win funds.
The company also plans to invest $27 million over the next five years to support establishment of "Smart Factory".
In this regard, The FTC held two meetings on May 26 and June 2 to review Samsung's measures. It reportedly rejected the remedial measures submitted by Samsung Group because it did not meet the requirements. Possible punishment, such as a fine, will be decided shortly, according to the FTC.
Meanwhile, the In-house cafeteria market has been divided according to its size, with large retailers taking charge of large corporate cafeterias and small businesses working with small and medium-sized companies.
For this reason, small food distributors had difficulty expanding their services. Considering this, FTC ordered 8 large companies to select in-house cafeteria businesses through competitive bidding in April.
