A Study on the Coopetition between Professional Laws and the Fair Trade Law in the Country

1. Background of Study
Professional personnel in the country, such as accountants, lawyers, physicians and architects, besides taking national examinations to obtain licenses, also require strict and specialized training for a long period of time. For this reason, higher ethical standards and self-discipline are normally expected in such professions because of their professional authority and independence. These personnel have the right to form professional organizations according to law. Within the range of self-governance, such organizations may establish their own regulations, ethical guidelines and fee standards to define their practices and ensure the service quality of the members. In recent years, the decisions the Fair Trade Commission has made on violations of the Fair Trade Law by professional personnel or organizations have aroused concerns about the coopetition between professional laws and the Fair Trade Law. In subsequence, the Fair Trade Commission has faced many challenges in administrative remedy processes. Therefore, this study is intended to examine and compare related legislations in other countries and also review domestic precedents that involved competition law and professional laws to analyze the relations in between in order to propose suggestions for harmonizing such relations.

2. Main Suggestions
After review of discourses in relation to coopetition between professional laws and the Fair Trade Law, the following suggestions aiming at cross-region competition advocacy and application of special profession laws and the Fair Trade Law are proposed for future reference:
(1) Extension of competition advocacy
The Fair Trade Commission should act according to the legislative spirit of the Fair Trade Law and continue to consult with the competent authorities of different special professions on controversial application of laws as well as review existing competition restriction provisions in the regulations of related agencies. In addition, competition advocacy can be extended to cover people who require the service of professional personnel. In other words, the power of consumers can be used to promote competition.
(2) Application of special professional laws and competition law
After accumulating certain amount of law enforcement experience, the Fair Trade Commission should establish guidelines for regulation of professional personnel by adopting both market-oriented and non-market-oriented approaches of regulation to describe the patterns of practices of professional personnel or their trade unions that are likely to violate the Fair Trade Law and also set the standards of expertise of different professionals. Meanwhile, to resolve the problem of information asymmetry appropriately, it is suggested that the competent authorities set up a platform for access to information regarding special professional personnel.