Why did the Seoul Administrative Court suspend Coupang’s 201.1 billion-won fine over user data collection?

The court cited concern that enforcing the penalty could cause irrecoverable damage to Coupang. The company had filed an injunction request while pursuing a lawsuit to cancel the surcharges.

How long is Coupang’s 201.1 billion-won fine suspended?

The suspension lasts until 30 days after the first verdict in Coupang’s main lawsuit seeking cancellation of the penalty surcharges.

What happened to Coupang’s separate request to suspend the 423.6 billion-won data-breach fine?

A different panel of the Seoul Administrative Court rejected that injunction request on Thursday. The fine concerned a data breach affecting more than 37 million users.

Court suspends $147.74 mil. fine imposed on Coupang for unauthorized user data collection

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Summary

The Seoul Administrative Court on Friday suspended Coupang’s 201.1 billion-won fine in Seoul until 30 days after the first verdict in the company’s lawsuit seeking to cancel the penalty. The fine was imposed over the collection and storage of online activity records from about 11.17 million users without their consent. The court cited concern that enforcing the penalty could cause irrecoverable damage to Coupang. A different court panel rejected Coupang’s request Thursday to suspend a separate 423.6 billion-won fine over a data breach affecting more than 37 million users.

Key Facts

The Personal Information Protection Commission imposed the 201.1 billion-won penalty surcharges on Coupang for collecting users’ online activity records and storing them in its database without consent.
Coupang filed both a lawsuit seeking cancellation of the surcharges and a separate request for an injunction against the fine.
The suspension will remain in effect until 30 days after the first verdict in the main lawsuit.
The commission’s 423.6 billion-won fine over the data breach was described as the largest fine it had imposed on a single firm.

By Yonhap

Published Nov 6, 2026 4:12 pm KST

Coupang headquarters in Gwnagjin District, Seoul / Yonhap

A court on Friday temporarily suspended a 201.1 billion-won ($147.74 million) fine imposed on e-commerce giant Coupang Corp. over unauthorized collection of user data, officials said.

Coupang had earlier filed a lawsuit seeking to cancel the penalty surcharges levied by the Personal Information Protection Commission for collecting the online activity records of about 11.17 million users and storing them in its database without consent.

At the same time, Coupang also filed for an injunction against the fine.

The Seoul Administrative Court granted Coupang's injunction request Friday and suspended the execution of the fine until 30 days after the first verdict in the main lawsuit seeking the cancellation of the surcharges is made, citing concern the penalty could cause irrecoverable damage to the company.

Separately, the commission had fined Coupang 423.6 billion won over a data breach affecting more than 37 million users — the largest fine ever handed down by the privacy regulator to a single firm.

Coupang filed an injunction request to suspend the fine, but a different panel of the court rejected the request Thursday.

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