Coupang Chairperson Bom Kim issued his first apology on the 28th. It came a month after the company recognized that about 30 million user accounts were leaked at the end of Nov. The apology also came as Coupang, accused of leaking personal information, faces a joint parliamentary hearing, after repeatedly submitting a written statement explaining his absence. The hearing on Coupang will be held for two days starting on the 30th.
That day, the retail industry analyzed four reasons behind why the apology was issued. The biggest reason is that pressure is mounting for Bom Kim and his family to attend the National Assembly hearing. Bom Kim submitted a written statement explaining his absence to the joint parliamentary hearing on the 28th. He said the reason was because he had a scheduled commitment.
Choi Min-hee, a lawmaker from the Democratic Party of Korea who chairs the Science. ICT. Broadcasting. and Communications Committee, disclosed the written statements explaining his absence from Kim and two others on Facebook that day and said, "This time, too, it is of course disallowed."
In response, led recently by the Democratic Party of Korea's Euljiro Committee, a plan is being pushed to call Kim Yu-seok, the younger brother of Chairperson Bom Kim, as a witness for the hearing. Min Byung-deok, chairperson of the Democratic Party of Korea's Euljiro Committee, said, "Coupang's top managers first insisted he was a 'working-level staffer,' but it turned out he is a vice president at headquarters. If Bom Kim ultimately does not appear at this hearing, we will at least call his younger brother, Vice President Kim Yu-seok."
An industry official interpreted it as "the apology was issued right before the hearing to ease pressure on the owner and the family."
A bigger problem than attending the hearing is the outlook that Coupang will find it difficult to avoid being designated by the Fair Trade Commission as the same person (head of a business group) going forward. Until now, Coupang had downplayed the presence of Vice President Kim Yu-seok as merely a dispatched working-level employee. That has been a key reason the Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) did not designate Coupang's same person.
However, after the personal information leak incident, the rank and treatment of Vice President Kim Yu-seok were revealed. It was confirmed that Kim Yu-seok received compensation close to what Chairperson Bom Kim received. According to the Digital Times that day, Kim Yu-seok received a total of about 2.2 billion won in compensation from 2021 to 2024 and was also granted restricted stock units (RSUs), a conditional stock compensation typically given as an executive incentive.
This can be interpreted as Vice President Kim Yu-seok holding an executive-equivalent rank and receiving compensation accordingly. This is a point on which Coupang could face criticism for having misled the FTC. It could escalate into a matter leading to an FTC referral to prosecutors and even criminal penalties.
If Coupang Chairperson Bom Kim is designated as the same person (owner), he would be subject to strengthened regulations under the Fair Trade Act, including bans on private interest appropriation and obligations to submit relatives' data. As a result, monitoring of internal transactions would intensify, and unfair profit-taking by the owner's family would be restricted. A business community official said, "Only when the issue settles down can other issues be put in order."
Third, it is because the special prosecutor's investigation into Coupang's unpaid severance case is proceeding actively.
According to legal sources that day, a victim who did not receive severance pay from Coupang was questioned on the 26th. The victim worked as a day laborer at Coupang's logistics center in Bucheon, Gyeonggi, for 17 months from Nov. 2022, handling product packaging and shipping, but severance pay was not provided on the grounds that the person took two breaks of about two weeks each. Regarding legal actions in this case, claims have emerged within legal circles that there was pressure from the leadership.
A business community official said, "It is known that Coupang is paying closer attention to the special prosecutor's moves. If the personal information leak issue does not die down and grows larger, there will be ripple effects."
There was also analysis that Chairperson Bom Kim's apology came because Coupang's announcement of its own investigation on the 25th instead led to a confrontation with the government.
On the 25th, Coupang said that not 30 million accounts but only 3,000 were leaked, and there was no leakage to third parties. When the government, including the police, expressed regret, calling it a self-investigation, the company released a joint investigation log, saying it had been cooperation with the government.
However, it was confirmed that the government body Coupang cooperated with was the National Intelligence Service (NIS), which joined the pan-government task force later, not the police, the main investigative authority. The NIS also explained, "We did have working-level consultations, but we did not issue instructions." As a result, Coupang not only finds itself in a situation where its self-investigation results cannot be trusted, but also faces criticism for bypassing the government.
A business community official said, "Usually, when announcing investigation results, schedules are discussed with the government and joint efforts are made, and I cannot understand the explanation that a unilateral announcement was decided because the government was unlikely to allow the release of the self-investigation results."