Coupang has won the first round of its fight with South Korea’s competition regulator. The Seoul High Court on Tuesday suspended the Fair Trade Commission’s decision to name founder Bom Kim as the e-commerce group’s controlling figure, freezing the disclosure obligations that came with it while the underlying lawsuit is heard.
The court’s Administrative Division 7 granted the injunction sought by Coupang, Kim, and other plaintiffs. It suspended both the designation itself and the FTC’s separate demand that Kim hand over additional information about his relatives.
“The applicants have demonstrated an urgent need to prevent irreparable harm,” the court said, adding that it saw no sign the suspension would significantly undermine the public interest.
The freeze runs until 30 days after the court rules on the main case. Coupang had asked for something longer, a suspension lasting until the judgment became final, and did not get it.
The dispute turns on a piece of Korean corporate law with no clean English equivalent. Each year the FTC publishes its list of large business groups subject to disclosure rules and names, for each one, the dongilin, the “same person” deemed to sit at the top of the structure.
