South Korea’s antitrust watchdog, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), imposed about 300 billion won ($220.6 million) fine on e-commerce giant Coupang for abusing its dominant market position in food delivery market.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Coupang required merchants to match favourable terms offered on rival platforms and penalized those that failed to comply, restricting competition in the delivery app sector.
Key details about violation:
According to the KFTC, Coupang forced merchants and sellers on its platform to match the favorable pricing and trading terms they offered on competing delivery and e-commerce apps.
Penalties on Non-Compliance: The company reportedly penalized or sanctioned merchants who failed to comply with these demands.
Impact on the Market:
The FTC said, Coupang required restaurants to match six conditions, including menu prices, minimum order amounts, discounts and delivery charges.
Restaurants that failed to comply, risked losing a special designation that allowed them to offer discounts and free delivery to Coupang’s paid-membership customers.
The regulator said the proportion of restaurants meeting the requirements rose to nearly 94% in October 2025 from about 13% in July 2023.
The FTC also fined Woowa Brothers, the operator of rival delivery app Baemin, 331.1 billion won for similar practices.
Woowa Brothers said in a statement it had explained to the FTC that its conduct was not unlawful and regretted that its arguments had not been fully accepted, adding it would closely review the decision.
Coupang said in a statement the penalty was excessive and more than 600 times the fine imposed in a comparable 2020 case involving another food delivery app.
It said the FTC had included revenue unrelated to the alleged conduct when calculating the fine, undermining its right of defence, and that it would challenge the decision through legal proceedings.
The ruling adds to tensions between US-listed Coupang and South Korean authorities, which fined the company 624 billion won in June over a 2025 data breach affecting more than 33 million customers.
Coupang has disputed the government’s findings and handling of that case, while Republican US lawmakers have accused Seoul of discriminating against an American company, a claim South Korean officials reject.
The e-commerce and retail company has maintained an extensive lobbying and political operation in Washington, contributing to figures on both sides of the political aisle.
Regulators noted that these anticompetitive practices severely restricted merchants’ ability to independently set prices, harmed fair competition in the food delivery and app sector, and stifled rival businesses.
This penalty adds to a mounting wave of intense regulatory scrutiny and massive financial penalties facing Coupang in South Korea, following a separate record-breaking privacy fine earlier in the year over a massive data breach
