Korea’s antitrust agency slapped fines on the six biggest domestic and foreign commercial vehicle makers and a distributor for price fixing, and ordered them to correct their wrongdoings against customers including licensed truck drivers.

The Fair Trade Commission said Monday that it would impose penalties totaling 116 billion won ($104.5 million) for their deliberate collusion and was planning to file a complaint with the state prosecutor.

The seven big commercial vehicle companies are: Hyundai Motor; Tata Daewoo, Daimler Trucks Korea, Man Truck & Bus Korea, Volvo Trucks Korea, Scania Korea and Daewoo Songdo Development.

Daewoo Songdo had distributed commercial vehicles of Tata Daewoo, the antitrust regulator said.

Those who mostly purchase their vehicles are members of Korea’s truck drivers union. Construction and logistics companies’ purchases only account for 20 percent of the total, according to the FTC.

Hyundai Motor, the No. 1 automaker of both sedans and commercial vehicles, was charged the highest fine of over 71.7 billion won, followed by foreign giant Scania with some 17.6 billion won.

The seven, which have dominated the market, with Hyundai leading with about 50 percent market share, had been exchanging market and trade secrets between December 2002 and April 2011.

They regularly met once every two to three months to exchange information on prices, inventories and marketing plans of their vehicles such as tractors and dump and cargo trucks to set and raise the prices. They then followed up on their meetings by exchanging emails and phone calls whenever the seven needed to raise the prices, the FTC said.

A slowdown in the construction industry, rising component prices and fierce competition on the back of strengthened environmental regulations were the reasons the seven giants fixed the prices of their trucks, the FTC said in a report.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)