South Korea’s anti-trust regulator has fined Korea Air more than $600,000 for awarding contracts to its own affiliate companies controlled by relatives of Korean Air executives.
Korean Air awarded an advertising contract to Cyber Sky and management of its call center operations to Uniconverse.
Both companies are controlled by members of the Cho family, including Korean Air vice president Cho Won-tae.
The Fair Trade Commission imposed a fine of 715 million won ($611,000) on KAL and a similar amount on the two subsidiaries.
"Our decision was for blocking economic wealth from being given to the owner family members unfairly by applying a new regulation that disallows personal profit taking," the FTC said in a statement.
KAL said that it would likely take some form of legal action after fully reviewing the FTC’s decision.
