FTC sets standard market rates for brand usage fees…watching LG, SK, and Hanwha
The Fair Trade Commission has 13for the first time established a standard-market benchmark to judge the appropriateness of corporate trademark and brand usage fees. The key point is that it now has a basis to check internal transactions between holding companies and affiliates.
The Fair Trade Commission announced that it has 13for the first time established a standard-market benchmark to judge the appropriateness of corporate trademark usage fees. It became a basis for checking brand usage fee transactions carried out between holding companies and affiliates.
The FTC said it has established a standard-market benchmark and an assessment framework. However, specific details such as the individual items and how they will be applied have not yet been disclosed.
Trademark usage fee transactions are carried out mainly between holding companies and affiliates. The structure is one in which affiliates use the brand and pay the holding company in return.
Until now, brand usage fees had been seen as potentially amounting to preferential enrichment for the owner family, but the lack of a clear standard had left the issue in limbo. With this new standard in place, that blind spot is now expected to disappear.
The industry is watching brand usage fee transactions at major corporate groups such as LG, SK, Hanwha, CJ, and POSCO. Some groups are said to have paid brand usage fees through internal transactions totaling more than 1,000a year.
Whether the Fair Trade Commission's standards will lead to actual sanctions, or how the scope of application and retroactive effect will be handled, will be determined by the detailed information to be released later. For now, the establishment of the standards and the non-disclosure of details are the main confirmed facts.
Sources: 연합인포맥스
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