Republic of Korea: Issued KFTC fine against Google for abuse of dominance in the mobile gaming app market

On 11 April 2023, Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) imposed a fine of KRW 42.1 billion on Google LLC, Google Korea and Google Asia Pacific for abusing their market dominance in the local mobile gaming app market. In particular, the FTC found that between 2016 and 2018, Google implemented anticompetitive practices to block the growth of “One Store”, a local mobile app marketplace, by inducing game companies to release their apps exclusively onto the Google Play store in exchange for favourable promotion on the platform and support for launching their products overseas. The FTC also imposed a corrective order and required Google to implement an internal monitoring system to ensure that similar practices do not recur in the future.