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Among the specific types of unfair trade practices under the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (the “Fair Trade Act”), customer inducement by fraudulent means, in particular, is characterized in two ways of competition and consumer law with the additional requirements expressed as fraudulent means. However, in order for this provision to clarify the nature of competition law, the following two questions must be established. First, a question of whether the additional requirement expressed as a fraudulent method is to embody the requirements of the act, or to embody the requirements of the illegality. Second, if the method of ranking is a requirement for the conduct, then what is the relationship between this requirement and the requirement for illegality?

For the requirements of the act of deception, the requirements for deception shall be distinguished from the requirements for the act of customer inducement by fraudulent means. The Supreme Court’s precedent shows whether or not consumers’ reasonable choices are hindered by comparing prices between the operator and its competitors’ products, and whether or not fair competition order is hindered by unfair customer inducement. Since the law of these standards of illegality also applies to consumer inducement with fraudulent means, a separate evaluation process for negative effects on the competition cannot be omitted, considering factors in determining the conduct specific to fraudulent customer inducement.

Against this background, this paper analyzes the implications of the application of the interpretation theory presented in this paper as a legal rule for determining whether or not mobile telecommunications operators’ handset subsidies activities fall under the category of fraud.