Prosecutor charges South Korea's four oil refiners with collusion: Report

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SEOUL: South Korean prosecutors said they indicted the country's four oil refiners on charges of fuel price collusion, estimated to have caused anti-competitive harm worth US$17 billion, Yonhap News Agency reported on Monday (Jul 6), citing the prosecution.

The companies are HD Hyundai Oilbank, SK Energy, GS Caltex and S-Oil, Yonhap said.

A spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office did not respond to Reuters' phone call and text message seeking confirmation of the report.

Prosecutors alleged that pricing managers at HD Hyundai Oilbank and SK Energy colluded on prices for their petroleum products shortly after the outbreak of the conflict in Iran earlier this year, Yonhap said. They discussed the scale and timing of price increases, Yonhap said.

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GS Caltex and S-Oil also followed their pricing, Yonhap reported.

The total value of the anti-competitive effect was estimated at 26 trillion won (US$17 billion), Yonhap said, citing prosecutors.

SK Innovation, the parent company of SK Energy, declined to comment. S-Oil had no immediate comment. HD Hyundai Oilbank and GS Caltex did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The country's antitrust watchdog, the Korea Fair Trade Commission, earlier this year raised the penalty for collusion to at least 10 per cent of sales related to the violation, up from a minimum of 0.5 per cent previously.

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