Seoul rebuts U.S. claims on Coupang

South Korea has pushed back against a U.S. House of Representatives report alleging that American companies, including Coupang, have faced discriminatory treatment by the South Korean government.

The Foreign Ministry said Friday that the South Korean Embassy in Washington had submitted a formal response to the House Judiciary Committee. On July 1, the committee released a preliminary staff report on Coupang that cited allegations of National Intelligence Service involvement in the company's personal data breach and claims by Harold Rogers, Coupang's interim Korea representative, that the South Korean government was trying to steer customers away from the e-commerce platform and toward domestic rivals. The report sparked controversy. During a rare visit to Seoul on July 15, South Korean Ambassador to the United States Kang Kyung-wha said the issue had proven "far more persistent than I had expected."

The ministry said it expressed "deep regret" that the report was based on unverified allegations. It also urged the committee to correct factual errors and include key information omitted from the report. According to the ministry, the embassy's response explained the principles underlying South Korea's regulatory framework and enforcement, stressed that the country's digital regulations are applied without discrimination, laid out the facts surrounding the Coupang data breach, defended the Personal Information Protection Commission's decision and outlined the legal basis for the government's actions involving Coupang.

The ministry said it would continue working to prevent the dispute from becoming a source of friction in the South Korea-U.S. relationship while expanding outreach to the House Judiciary Committee and other U.S. policymakers to counter what it described as Coupang's distortion of the facts.


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