Taoyuan County Trade Union of Personnel Engaging in Land Transaction

Case:

Key Words:

land, trade union, reference table

Reference:

Fair Trade Commission Decision of August 27, 2008 (the 877th Commissioners' Meeting), Disposition Kung Ch'u Tzu No. 097119

Industry:

Scrivener's Services (6912)

Relevant Laws:

Article 14 of the Fair Trade Law

Summary:

1. The Commission was informed that the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Personnel Engaging in Land Transaction (hereinafter referred to as"Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel") formulated a reference table of collection of fees of members' practicing and issued it to its members. The FTC hence conducted an ex officio investigation of the case.
2. Findings of FTC after Investigation: In 1996, the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel referred to the"Professional Practitioners' Revenue Standards Adjusted by Tax Authorities" stipulated by the Ministry of Finance and formulated approximately 30 items, such as handling charges, charges for registration of land or building ownership transfer (exchange), and building tax transfer, that were differentiated in detail on the basis of the characteristics of cases handled by land transaction engaging personnel, and stipulated the reference standards of collection of fees. However, due to the charges of"Professional Practitioners' Revenue Standards Adjusted by Tax Authorities" stipulated by the Ministry of Finance were higher than the standards set by the reference table of collection of fees formulated by the trade union and recent inflation. The 6th meeting of the 7th board of directors of the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel passed the amendment of the reference table of collection of fees for members' practices in July 2007. The reference standards of collection of fees for 13 items were raised by NT$ 1,000 approximately, and the item of conversation fee for NT$ 2,000 per hour was added.
3. Grounds for Disposition:
   (1) As members of the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel are agents who/which help register, transfer, or apply for transcriptions for a land or building. The trade union is an organization established in terms of the Labor Union Law. That is, the organization is a union consists of laborers who provide services independently, and itself provides services. Therefore, members of such a trade union or the union itself has fallen under the definition of the term "enterprise" as provided by Article 2(iv) of the Fair Trade Law.
   (2) The Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel has considerable market power, as the percentage of its members who are actually registered and practicing land administration personnel among the total registered and practicing personnel in Taoyuan was approximately 29%. In the same way, after the trade union resolved to modify the reference table of collection of fees of members' practices in the board of directors meeting, it published in the Journal of Real Estate Legal Writers Issue No. 227 on August 1, 2007 the content that"the union has modified ‘the reference table of collection of fees of members' practices,' and members can access to it in the union." Furthermore, the Commission sent out investigators to visit the business places of the union's members and found out that the reference table of collection of fees of members' practices stipulated by the union was hung or displayed on the wall of the business places of some of the members, and some other members collected fees by referring to the said reference table and then negotiated fees with consumers. These findings showed that the reference table formulated by the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel had been referred to by the union's members, and these facts were sufficient to affect the function of the land transaction brokerage services market in Taoyuan. As a result, the trade union violated Article 14(1) of the Fair Trade Law, which prohibits of concerted actions. Accordingly, the Commission ordered the Taoyuan County Trade Union of Land Personnel to cease such an unlawful act immediately and imposed an administrative fine of NT$ 200,000 on it in accordance with the forepart of Article 41 of the same Law.

Summarized by Lai, Mei Hua; Supervised by Chen, Yuhn Shan