conflict with principles of international cooperation.353 In addition, if all of a
cartel’s activities occur in foreign territories, domestic laws would not be
applicable, since the anticompetitive prohibitions pursuant to the MRFTA
cover anticompetitive acts, not the consequent "situations" created by those
acts.354
Meanwhile, extraterritorial application was believed to be possible within
the legal framework of that time based on the following grounds: the place of
implementation theory adopted by E.U. courts (which, from a traditional
perspective of international law, have the least possibility of diplomatic
dispute); opposed to criminal law, administrative laws rarely have separate
provisions on extraterritorial application; and sufficient ground for
extraterritorial application found in Article 1 of the Act as it stipulates
protection of competition in the domestic markets a purpose of the Act, while
Article 2 does not confine the meaning of enterpriser to domestic enterprisers.”
It was further argued that as the U.S. and E.U. had already abandoned the
territorial principle by applying the U.S. Sherman Act and E.U. competition
laws in extraterritorial cases without specific legal grounds, Korea had no
reason to stand by territoriality.355
Such disputes came to an end as the KFTC investigated and took
enforcement measures on the international cartel cases involving graphite
(April 2002)356 and vitamins (April 2003)357, in which the courts confirmed
that the MRFTA could apply to foreign nationals that affect domestic markets.