Court rejects injunction lawsuit by Coupang over data breach-related fine

A Seoul court Thursday rejected an injunction lawsuit by e-commerce firm Coupang filed against a fine of some 423 billion won ($315 million) levied by a state-run data protection agency over its massive data leak.

The Seoul Administrative Court said there is no need to nullify the fine imposed by the Personal Information Protection Commission in June this year over privacy violations, including a massive data breach that affected more than 37 million users.

It marked the largest fine ever imposed by the regulator on a single company, according to the commission.

The punitive measures came more than six months after Coupang belatedly reported a large-scale data breach last November of personal information of users in South Korea, including their names, phone numbers and delivery details.

Under the personal information protection law, companies that suffer personal information leaks can be fined up to 3 percent of their annual sales, although sales from businesses unrelated to the violation can be excluded.

Coupang logged about 36 trillion won in annual sales on average in the past three years.

The e-commerce company’s massive data leak had also emerged as a source of friction between Seoul and Washington after some U.S. officials and lawmakers raised concerns about whether the Korean unit of the U.S.-listed Coupang Inc. was being treated unfairly in the investigation.