Woowa Brothers, Coupang face $465 mil. in fines for abusing delivery market dominance

Woowa Brothers and Coupang have been slapped with a combined 631.9 billion won ($465 million) in fines for abusing their dominant positions in Korea’s food delivery market by forcing affiliated restaurants to offer consumers prices and promotional terms at least as favorable as those available through competing channels.

The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) said Monday it has decided to order the companies to rectify the unfair practices and impose provisional fines of 331.1 billion won on Woowa Brothers, the operator of Baemin, and 300.8 billion won on Coupang, which operates Coupang Eats. The two platforms account for more than 90 percent of the nation’s food delivery market share.

According to the regulator's investigation, both companies abused their market power to impose so-called most-favored-nation (MFN) requirements on restaurants, restricting their ability to offer different prices, discounts and other terms through competing delivery platforms.

The FTC said the practices made it difficult for restaurants to establish more favorable conditions on rival platforms and weakened competition in the delivery market.

An MFN requirement refers to a demand that a business partner provide terms that are no less favorable than those offered to competitors.

Coupang, which entered the delivery app market in 2019, imposed MFN requirements on restaurants from July 2023 to January 2026, according to the FTC.

The company required restaurants seeking to maintain their status as “WOW stores,” which offered delivery benefits to Coupang WOW membership subscribers, to meet conditions covering menu prices, minimum order amounts, discounts, delivery fees paid by customers, the number of menu items and operating hours.

Restaurants that failed to meet the requirements could lose the WOW store status, potentially resulting in a significant sales decline, according to the FTC investigation.

The regulator said Coupang’s MFN requirements became increasingly widespread, with the proportion of WOW stores meeting the conditions rising from about 13 percent in July 2023 to 94 percent in October 2025.

Baemin adopted a similar strategy as competition with Coupang intensified.

The platform required restaurants using its own-delivery service to meet MFN conditions covering menu prices, minimum order amounts and discounts from May 2024 to October 2025.

Restaurants that met the conditions were designated as “Baemin Club stores” and received delivery fee discounts for Baemin Club subscribers. Those that failed to meet the requirements were excluded from the program. Baemin Club is a paid membership program for customers to receive delivery fee discounts, similar to Coupang's WOW membership.

The proportion of Baemin Club stores meeting the conditions increased from about 63 percent in May 2024 to around 80 percent in January 2025, according to the FTC.

The regulator said restaurants largely accepted the demands because exclusion from the programs could lead to substantial sales losses.

The FTC also sanctioned Baemin for allegedly forcing restaurants to switch from its marketplace delivery service, where restaurants arrange delivery themselves, to Baemin’s own-delivery service. It also imposed a penalty over what it called misleading advertising concerning estimated delivery times.

Of Baemin’s 331.1 billion won fine, 160.2 billion won was related to its MFN requirements, 155.4 billion won to the forced switch to its own-delivery service and 15.4 billion won to misleading delivery-time advertising.

“The measures were necessary to correct unfair practices in the delivery app market and prevent dominant platforms from using their market power to restrict the business activities of restaurants and competing platforms,” an FTC official said.