SEOUL, July 14 (Reuters) – A South Korean court on Tuesday suspended a Fair Trade Commission (FTC) decision to designate Kim Bom, the founder of U.S.-listed e-commerce firm Coupang, as the group’s controlling entity.
The Seoul High Court granted an injunction sought by Coupang and Kim, suspending the designation pending a ruling in the main lawsuit, according to a court filing.
The court said it granted the request due to “an urgent need to prevent irreparable harm” to the applicants from the change in designation.
It found no evidence that suspending the FTC measure would run counter to the public interest.
The suspension will remain in effect until 30 days after the court delivers its ruling in the main lawsuit, when the legality of the FTC’s designation will be decided upon, it said.
In April, the FTC designated Kim, a Korean-American, as the group’s controlling person, replacing Coupang as the group’s “same person” under South Korean fair trade law and subjecting the company to additional disclosure and governance requirements.
The designation, which Coupang challenged in court, followed an FTC probe into the involvement of Kim’s family members in the group’s operations and came amid heightened regulatory scrutiny of the company after a major customer data breach.
South Korea’s regulatory actions involving Coupang, including a separate record fine imposed by the Personal Information Protection Commission over the data breach, have caused friction with the U.S. over the treatment of the company.
(Reporting by Kyu-seok Shim; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Thomas Derpinghaus)
