The Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) said on the 14th that it submitted a request to the National Assembly Public Officials Ethics Committee to investigate whether 16 retired National Assembly aides who found jobs at Coupang affiliates violated the law.
CCEJ argued that the ethics committee should invoke its "right to demand data submission" to conduct a full review of ▲ the connection to their past National Assembly duties ▲ the actual duties they handle now at Coupang ▲ records of their access to the National Assembly after leaving their posts ▲ lobbying records in the National Assembly.
According to CCEJ, over the past six years (2020–2025), 16 retired National Assembly staffers were reemployed at Coupang. That was more than conglomerate groups such as Samsung, SK, and LG.
CCEJ suspected that despite lacking logistics expertise, National Assembly retirees were being hired by Coupang to "defend against" the Ministry of Employment and Labor (MOEL)'s work-stoppage orders or National Assembly oversight. It cited as grounds the fact that only working-level staff at grade 3–4 or below—who are not obligated to submit post-employment work details—were "pinpoint hired," and that aides from relevant standing committees were intensively recruited whenever worker fatalities, data leaks, and other incidents occurred.
CCEJ said, "Coupang is the company where the National Assembly's regulatory issues—labor, logistics, and platform fairness—are most concentrated," adding, "the mass hiring of National Assembly aides with zero logistics experience is 'regulatory capture' and 'talent shopping' aimed at neutralizing legislative oversight."
It continued, "While the ethics committee has served as an 'employment free pass' with a 97% approval rate, National Assembly aides are being reduced to shields for corporations subject to regulation," and added, "the ethics committee must awaken its dormant investigative authority and prove the legislature's fairness on its own."