Court Suspends Enforcement of Coupang's 200 Billion Won Fine Over Personal Data Leaks

The enforcement of approximately 200 billion won out of a total of over 600 billion won in fines imposed on Coupang by the Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) for personal data leaks has been suspended.

The enforcement of the remaining 400 billion won or so in fines remains intact.

The 1st Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Yang Sang-yoon) granted Coupang's injunction request today (November 6) seeking to suspend the enforcement of the PIPC's order to impose a fine of 201.1 billion won, along with corrective and publication orders.

The suspension will remain in effect until 30 days after the delivery of the first-instance ruling on the main lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the fines and other measures.

In June of this year, the PIPC resolved to take the disciplinary measures after confirming violations in which Coupang allegedly unauthorizedly collected online activity records of approximately 11.17 million members who accessed third-party websites and apps, and stored them in a database (DB) while identifying individual users.

The court explained, "It has been demonstrated that the PIPC's disposition risks causing irreparable damage to Coupang, and there is an urgent necessity to suspend its enforcement to prevent such harm."

The court also noted, "It does not appear that the suspension of enforcement would pose a significant adverse effect on public welfare, nor is it apparent that the applicant's main claims lack merit."

Coupang filed a separate appeal and injunction request regarding a separate fine of 423.6 billion won imposed in connection with the leakage of personal information belonging to approximately 37.5 million individuals, but a different judicial panel dismissed that related injunction request yesterday.

The 4th Administrative Division of the Seoul Administrative Court (Presiding Judge Kim Young-min) maintained the enforcement of the disposition yesterday, stating that "the damages Coupang would suffer from the PIPC's imposition of the fine amounting to around 400 billion won appear to be restorable through monetary compensation."

However, the court suspended the enforcement of the simultaneous corrective and publication orders issued by the PIPC until 30 days after the ruling on the main lawsuit, citing the risk of irreparable damage to Coupang.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.