Kakao Mobility blocked rival taxi calls; Korea fined it ₩15.1 billion

Kakao Mobility runs Kakao T, Korea's dominant taxi-hailing app. From March 2019 it operated Kakao T Blue, its own franchise taxi service, and demanded that four rival franchise taxi operators — UT, Tada, Banban and Macaron Taxi — either pay fees for their affiliated drivers to use Kakao T general calls or sign partnership agreements that let Kakao collect competitors' trade secrets, including driver and taxi-operation data. Operators that refused had their drivers' calls to Kakao T blocked, which pushed UT and Tada drivers into franchise terminations and made recruiting new drivers hard.

On 2 October 2024 the Korea Fair Trade Commission announced a provisional fine of ₩72.4 billion for abuse of market dominance and abuse of a superior bargaining position, alongside a corrective order and a referral to the prosecution. Kakao T held a 96% share of the general-call taxi app market as of 2022, and Kakao Mobility's share of the franchise taxi market rose from 51% to 79% as the blocking cut off competitors.

On 17 December 2024 the FTC finalized the fine at ₩15.1 billion. The reduction followed a ruling by the Securities and Futures Commission that Kakao had inflated its sales by booking franchise fees and business-partnership fees in full as revenue — the gross method — rather than netting them, which the SFC called 'serious negligence'. The corrective order and the prosecution referral were both maintained.