Ju Biung-ghi Chairperson of the Korea Fair Trade Commission appeared on the YouTube channel "Kim Ou-joon's It's hard to be humble News Factory" on the 12th and said, "If relief for victims is not provided or corrective orders are not carried out, a business suspension is also possible."
The Chairperson noted this regarding the status of the probe into Coupang that was prompted by a large-scale personal information leak.
The Chairperson said, "The investigation is not yet complete, so we first need to identify what information was lost and to what extent consumer harm is expected." They added, "We need to see whether Coupang can provide relief for the damage (from the information leak) and what the relief methods are," and said, "If the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) issues a corrective order and the order is not carried out, or if it is determined that the order does not provide relief for victims, a business suspension is also possible."
The Chairperson also said, "The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) is focusing on inspecting unfair practices by Coupang and deceptive acts against consumers." The Chairperson continued, "We have already completed deliberations on acts of imposing losses on partner sellers through a lowest-price sales structure as unfair practices of a predatory nature," and said, "We are also looking into deceptive advertising related to the Wow Membership, which was promoted as if discount prices were applied continuously even though they were applied only once."
Regarding calls in some quarters to change Coupang's same person (owner) from the existing "Coupang corporation" to "Chair Kim Beom-suk," the Chairperson said, "We periodically review same-person designations every year (in May), and this time we plan to closely examine whether Chair Kim's family is participating in management." The Chairperson added, "If relatives participate in management, the same person can be changed from a corporation to an individual."