{"id":88020,"date":"2026-07-16T05:14:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:14:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/88020\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T05:14:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T05:14:48","slug":"us-house-committee-says-south-korea-discriminated-against-coupang-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/88020\/","title":{"rendered":"US House committee says South Korea discriminated against Coupang"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Korea routinely discriminates against US companies, report saysCoupang was target of regulatory scrutiny after 2025 data breachThe company was hit with dozens of unrelated investigations, report saysSouth Korea says the report does not reflect factsSEOUL, July 2 (Reuters) – South Korean authorities have consistently discriminated against U.S.-based Coupang (CPNG.N), opens new tab<\/a>, \u200ca campaign that escalated with numerous investigations after a data breach at the e-commerce firm last year, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee said in an interim report.<\/p>\n

Those actions were part of long-standing economic discrimination against U.S. and other foreign companies, the report said, adding \u200bthat such discrimination “directly violates” a recent bilateral trade agreement.<\/p>\n

Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n

South Korean foreign ministry spokesperson Park Il said the report \u200bwas one-sided, reflecting only claims by Coupang despite the government communicating with the committee for months. \u2060Allegations of discrimination against Coupang and other U.S. companies were untrue, he added.<\/p>\n

REPORT ALLEGES A ‘GOVERNMENT ASSAULT’ ON COUPANG<\/p>\n

Coupang, the \u200bbiggest online retailer in South Korea but based in Seattle, became the target of much regulatory scrutiny and public ire \u200blast year after news of the breach became known.<\/p>\n

A former employee was able to access customer information associated with as many as 33.7 million accounts. Coupang later said the person only stored and retained information relating to about 3,000 accounts.<\/p>\n

After the breach, “South Korea escalated its \u200battacks into a ‘whole-of-government assault on Coupang’,” according to the report by the Republican-controlled committee, which said its findings were \u200binformed by documents and testimony from Coupang.<\/p>\n

The report said more than 10 South Korean agencies initiated dozens of unrelated investigations into Coupang following \u200cthe \u2060breach, issuing over 4,000 document requests and conducting at least 652 interviews with Coupang employees.<\/p>\n

FACTS ABOUT LAPTOP RECOVERY EFFORTS DISPUTED<\/p>\n

It also said that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) forced Coupang to engage in a dangerous recovery operation that involved sending an employee to China and retrieving devices and sworn statements from the former employee responsible for the breach.<\/p>\n

As part \u200bof that, Coupang hired divers \u200bto retrieve a discarded laptop \u2060from a river, and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung was briefed on the recovery operation, the report said.<\/p>\n

The NIS denied in December that it had directed Coupang’s investigation \u200bor recovery efforts, saying it had only requested materials from the company. Democratic Party \u200blawmaker Park Sun-won, \u2060a member of South Korea’s National Assembly Intelligence Committee, also said on Thursday that there had been “absolutely” no coercion.<\/p>\n

The presidential Blue House did not have an immediate response.<\/p>\n

Coupang said in a statement that it regretted the circumstances that led to the \u2060House Judiciary \u200bCommittee’s investigation.<\/p>\n

It is “committed to finding a constructive resolution so Coupang can once \u200bagain serve as a bridge to strengthen the U.S.-Korea alliance, accelerating trade and investment that benefits both countries,” the company said.<\/p>\n

($1 = 1,555.7000 won)<\/p>\n

Reporting by \u200bJoyce Lee and Kyu-seok Shim; Additional reporting by Jack Kim and Kanishka Singh; Editing by Brenda Goh and Edwina Gibbs<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Korea routinely discriminates against US companies, report saysCoupang was target of regulatory scrutiny after 2025 data breachThe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":88021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[381],"tags":[46448,519,42465,46440,1247,426,46441,46454,46442,42511,42510,42477,46458,42476,42468,42463,42466,2632,46450,46455,42464,46443,42480,46449,42517,42512,42479,42461,46444,46451,46445,46446,46439,46453,46456,2987,46447,46457,1332,46452],"class_list":["post-88020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-coupang","tag-amers","tag-asia","tag-asxpac","tag-cmpny","tag-cn","tag-coupang","tag-cycs","tag-dabr","tag-dept","tag-destocatpm","tag-destoustpm","tag-destouswdm","tag-destseabs","tag-destseatp","tag-dip","tag-easia","tag-emrg","tag-gen","tag-hrep","tag-itec","tag-kr","tag-mailod","tag-mtpix","tag-namer","tag-news1","tag-packageus-top-news","tag-packageworld-news","tag-pol","tag-publ","tag-regs","tag-ret","tag-rgen","tag-rsbidata-privacy","tag-rulesworld-south-korea","tag-sci","tag-shop","tag-shopal","tag-trd","tag-us","tag-wash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}