Coupang granted suspension for W201b penalty related to collecting user information

The Seoul Administrative Court on Friday granted Coupang a stay of execution for the 201.16 billion won penalty surcharge levied for the unauthorized collection of online user activities. It denied the suspension requested for the much larger penalty imposed directly for the massive data breach last year.

The court accepted the e-commerce giant's request to temporarily suspend the penalty imposed by the Personal Information Protection Commission, allowing a 30-day suspension from the day the ruling was made.

"It has been justified that the PIPC's measure may lead to irreparable damage to Coupang, and that there is an urgent necessity to suspend the execution (of the penalty) to prevent such damage," the court said in its ruling.

The court added that it does not appear as if the suspension will impose severe damage on the public interest.

The PIPC penalized Coupang in June for illegally collecting information linked to 11.17 million users, in addition to the 423.58 billion won penalty imposed for the data breach involving more than 33.7 million users.

Coupang filed for suspension of execution for both orders, but the court on Thursday rejected the company's request to suspend execution for the penalty directly related to the data breach.

The court, however, granted a 30-day suspension for the PIPC's order for the company to apply corrective measures regarding the protection of customer information. It accepted Coupang's claim that the order may cause irreparable damage to the company, and that a suspension would not be severely detrimental to the public interest.

Coupang in June was slapped with the record-setting penalty surcharge for the massive data breach last year, along with unauthorized collection of user data.

The company has filed a separate administrative lawsuit, requesting nullification of the punitive actions imposed by the PIPC. The date for the first hearing of that trial has not yet been set.

The incident touched off friction between the South Korean and the US governments, after some US officials and lawmakers suggested that the Korean unit of the US-listed company was being subject to unfair treatment by the local authorities.