Unicity
October 21, 2026
SEJONG, South Korea - October 21, 2026
South Korea's Fair Trade Commission has opened consent decision proceedings for Unicity Korea, the Korean arm of Utah-based network marketing company Unicity International, over allegations that the company sidestepped the country's legal cap on distributor commissions by having its U.S. headquarters pay bonuses to top Korean distributors. It is the first time the regulator has started the consent decision process since the tool was added to Korea's Door-to-Door Sales Act.
The commission announced the decision Wednesday, October 21. Under a consent decision, a company under investigation proposes its own corrective and remedial measures, and if the commission accepts them, the case is closed without a formal ruling on whether the law was broken and without a penalty surcharge. The commission stressed that opening the procedure is neither a finding that Unicity Korea violated the law nor final approval of a settlement.
At the center of the case is Article 20, Paragraph 3 of the Door-to-Door Sales Act, which limits the total support bonuses a multi-level marketer may pay its distributors to 35 percent of the sales of goods supplied to those distributors. Investigators had been examining whether Unicity Korea moved the affiliation of some of its highest-ranking distributors to Unicity International in the United States, which then paid their commissions directly. If the bonuses paid by the U.S. parent are counted as Unicity Korea's own, the Korean company would have exceeded the statutory ceiling in every year from 2021 through 2024.
The legal question had not gone the regulator's way elsewhere. A civil appellate court that examined the same facts in a related case ruled that the U.S. headquarters' payments could not be treated as a scheme to help Unicity Korea evade the cap, and prosecutors declined to bring charges on the same grounds. Rather than continue contesting the issue, Unicity Korea applied for a consent decision, saying it would build a compliance framework for its bonus payout ratio and work more closely with its distributors and customers.
The company's proposed corrective measures include re-registering the distributors now enrolled under the U.S. headquarters as Unicity Korea distributors, adjusting the point value and prices of key products so that the bonus payout ratio stays within the legal limit, and forming a committee to monitor bonus payments. Unicity Korea also proposed consumer protection and distributor support steps: extending its product return period from 20 days to three months, providing compliance training to distributors and regional customer support centers, strengthening its distributor counseling center, posting information on how to avoid illegal multi-level marketing schemes on its website three days each month, and upgrading its IT systems.
The commission said the proposals meet the preliminary requirements to begin the procedure. Next, it will work with Unicity Korea on a provisional consent decision, which by law must be opened to stakeholders for comment for at least 30 days, and will consult with other relevant agencies. The final plan will then go to the full commission, which will decide whether to approve it. If approved, failure to carry out the agreed measures without good reason can lead to penalties.
The consent decision mechanism was written into the Door-to-Door Sales Act by an amendment passed in January 2022 and took effect in July of that year. Unicity Korea's case is the first to reach this stage, making it a test of how Korea will use negotiated remedies rather than fines in disputes over how multi-level marketers structure compensation across borders.
Unicity International is headquartered in Orem, Utah, and sells nutritional supplements and health products through independent distributors in dozens of markets, with South Korea among its significant Asian operations. The allegations have not been proven, and the commission has not ruled on whether any law was violated.