Seoul (AFP) – South Korea’s regulators fined ecommerce giant Coupang more than $200 million Monday for anticompetitive practices in the food-delivery market, months after it was hit with a record penalty over a data leak that provoked the ire of US lawmakers.
The authorities announced a provisional fine of 300.8 billion won ($222 million) against the firm over its treatment of restaurants regarding promotions. It also imposed a provisional fine of 331 billion won on Woowa Brothers Corp, the operator of the Baemin food delivery app, over similar violations, bringing the combined fines to 631.9 billion won.
The FTC said the two firms, which it claimed account for more than 90 percent of the food delivery market, were guilty of “abusing their dominant market positions and undermining competition” in the sector. It stated that from July 2023 to January this year, Coupang had demanded restaurants offer terms at least as favorable as those on rival delivery apps, penalizing those that failed to comply by excluding them from promotions targeting its paid subscribers.
Baemin was accused of making similar demands of restaurants using its delivery service, including over minimum order amounts, from May 2024 to October 2025, as per the regulator’s statement. The two firms “abused their dominant market positions by imposing unjustified conditions on restaurants using their platforms that deviated from normal business practices, thereby hampering the business activities of both restaurants and rival operators”.
This behavior, the regulator noted, led to “higher commission rates and menu prices while creating barriers to new entrants, ultimately harming consumer welfare”. The final amounts of the fines will be determined before the regulator issues its written decision, with no timetable announced.
Coupang protested the penalty, stating: “The crux of this case is that our efforts to provide better services to customers have instead been deemed unlawful.” The company added that its entry into the food-delivery market in 2019—when it claimed a rival held more than an 80 percent market share—had spurred “customer-focused competition”.
“Coupang Eats will carefully review the final ruling and fully present its position through appropriate legal procedures,” it said. The US-listed firm was previously fined a record 624.68 billion won earlier this year over a data leak that sparked tensions between South Korea and the United States. Some US Republicans accused South Korean authorities of taking “undiscriminatory regulatory actions”, prompting nearly 100 South Korean lawmakers to denounce “undue pressure” from American politicians in April. Coupang is challenging the data leak fine in court.
© 2024 AFP
