Regulator slaps $1.54 million fine on Coupang for pressuring suppliers for its profit margins

Seoul, Feb 26 (SocialNews.XYZ) South Korea's antitrust regulator said on Thursday it has imposed a fine of 2.19 billion won ($1.54 million) on e-commerce giant Coupang for pressuring suppliers to lower prices and cover advertising costs to meet its target profit margins.

Coupang was also found to have delayed payments to suppliers and failed to pay late interest, violating the Act on Fair Transactions In Large Retail Businesses, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said.

The FTC issued corrective orders to address the violations, reports Yonhap news agency.

Coupang, "the dominant player in the online shopping market, forced suppliers to make sacrifices to maintain its own profit margins," the FTC said.

The watchdog added that the latest measure aims to reform Coupang's margin management practices and other core business models that pressure suppliers, helping prevent a recurrence and improving unfair trade practices in the online shopping sector.

The company has faced increased scrutiny following a data breach incident that authorities say affected 33.6 million users. Coupang, however, has claimed that data from only about 3,000 accounts was actually leaked.

Meanwhile, Coupang said on Wednesday that around 200,000 Taiwanese accounts were leaked in a recent data breach that affected about 33 million accounts.

The announcement came after Coupang requested cybersecurity firms Mandiant and Palo Alto Networks to carry out a comprehensive forensic investigation following the breach in November 2025, reports Yonhap news agency.

"This was a crime committed by a former employee against Coupang and against our customers. While legal actions are outside our control, we have continuously called for this bad actor to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," the company said in a release.

According to Coupang, Mandiant determined that the former employee's unauthorised activity "included access to approximately 200,000 accounts in Taiwan."

In the report, Coupang also claimed that "no highly sensitive data" was accessed, noting that "there is no evidence that any of the accessed customer data was ever seen, shared with, or transferred to any other individual."

—IANS

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Source: IANS