The companies kept fixing prices even after the government paid out about 146.5 billion won to steady petrochemical output when the U.S.-Iran war sent oil prices soaring, prosecutors said.
LG Chem, OCI, Lotte Fine Chemical, Aekyung Chemical, PKC and Unid were indicted along with 37 current and former executives and employees, including OCI Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Kim Yㅐㅐ-shin.
Hanwha Solutions, also raided in August, was not charged.
The scheme ran from January 2021 to April this year and spanned eight chemicals, among them PVC, caustic soda, plasticizers and hydrochloric acid, which run through pipes, cables, semiconductors and water treatment plants.
The sum eclipses the three biggest cases the same unit had handled, a 10.15 trillion won cartel in starch sugar, a 5.99 trillion won cartel in flour and a 3.27 trillion won case in sugar.
Team leaders met to set the size and timing of each price increase and settled in advance which supplier would win contracts from large buyers, prosecutors said.
Reports say the firms staggered their price increase letters to blunt suspicion and moved to destroy evidence once investigators closed in. A court jailed two executives from LG Chem and PKC on Sept. 19 but rejected warrants for six others, including Kim.
AJP Takeaways
- The Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office on Oct. 1, 2026, indicted LG Chem, OCI, Lotte Fine Chemical, Aekyung Chemical, PKC and Unid, along with 37 current and former executives and employees, on charges of fixing prices of eight industrial chemicals.
- Prosecutors put the cartel at 16.4 trillion won ($12.2 billion) between January 2021 and April 2026, exceeding their previous largest case, a 10.15 trillion won starch sugar cartel.
- Prosecutors said the price fixing continued after the government disbursed about 146.5 billion won to stabilize petrochemical output following the oil price surge caused by the U.S.-Iran war.
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