The Supreme Court confirmed the suspension of enforcement of the corrective order received from the Fair Trade Commission due to allegations that Coupang manipulated its algorithm to provide preferential treatment to its products.
According to the legal community on the 20th, the Supreme Court's third division (Chief Justice Lee Sook-yeon) dismissed the appeal filed by the Fair Trade Commission against the court's partial suspension of enforcement decision on the 7th.
The suspension of enforcement is a decision to temporarily halt the effect of an administrative action when it is recognized that irreparable harm may occur.
Coupang is accused of unfairly boosting the rankings of over 60,000 of its products, including its private brand (PB) products and direct purchase products, by manipulating the algorithm. There are also suspicions that Coupang staff mobilized over 2,000 employees to post about 70,000 reviews on PB products.
In June, the Fair Trade Commission reported that Coupang and its subsidiary CPLB, which supplies PB products, violated the Fair Trade Act, imposing a penalty surcharge of about 140 billion won along with a corrective order to 'cease manipulation of reviews and search rankings.' Following this, as the sales increased until the conclusion of the review in June this year, the penalty surcharge Coupang must bear grew to approximately 162.8 billion won, the largest amount ever among domestic distributors.
Coupang filed a lawsuit to cancel the corrective order and penalty surcharge last month, also applying for a temporary suspension of enforcement. The Seoul High Court temporarily suspended the effect of the corrective order issued to Coupang on the 10th, noting that there was a risk of irreparable harm. However, it did not accept Coupang's request regarding the penalty surcharge payment order.
The court noted regarding the corrective order issued to Coupang, 'There is a concern that irreparable harm may occur to the applicants, and it is recognized that there is an urgent need to suspend its effect to prevent this.'
Regarding the penalty surcharge payment order, the court stated, 'The evidence submitted by the applicants is insufficient to demonstrate that there is a concern that irreparable harm may occur due to the order or that there is an urgent need to suspend its effect.'
The Fair Trade Commission filed an appeal against the Seoul High Court's decision. However, the Supreme Court concluded the case without a substantive review, affirming the ruling, stating that there was no error in the original judgment.