South Korea Fines Coupang a Provisional 300.8 Billion Won for Abusing Food-Delivery Dominance; Woowa Brothers Fined 331.1 Billion Won
SEOUL — South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said on November 9 that it would impose a provisional fine of 300.8 billion won (about $220.6 million) on e-commerce firm Coupang for abusing its dominant position in the food delivery market and restricting competition. Woowa Brothers, the operator of rival delivery app Baemin, was fined a provisional 331.1 billion won for similar practices, bringing the combined total to 631.9 billion won.
The commission said Coupang required restaurants to match on its platform the favourable terms they offered on rival platforms, covering six conditions including menu prices, minimum order amounts, discounts and delivery charges, and penalised those that failed to comply. The share of restaurants meeting the requirements rose from about 13% in July 2023 to nearly 94% in October 2025, the regulator said. Coupang enforced the rules from July 2023 to January 2026, stripping non-compliant restaurants of their "Wow restaurant" status.
Baemin and Coupang Eats accounted for 58.45% and 34.44% of South Korea's food delivery market by order value in 2025, a combined share above 90%, the commission said, adding that the two firms' simultaneous imposition of such most-favoured terms restricted competition in a manner similar to collusion, raised consumer prices and made entry harder for rivals. The final fine amounts will be set before the regulator issues its written decision, with no timetable announced.
Coupang said in a statement that the penalty was excessive and more than 600 times the fine imposed in a comparable 2020 case involving another delivery app. Coupang is headquartered in Seattle, listed in New York, and earns most of its revenue in South Korea; in June it was fined 624 billion won over a 2025 data breach affecting more than 33 million customers.
(Source: Reuters)
Source: Reuters
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：Coupang 配送货车（资料图）。Bonnielou2013 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: A Coupang delivery truck (file photo), by Bonnielou2013, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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