Seoul tells U.S. Republicans Coupang probe is 'nondiscriminatory and fair'

The Korean government wrote a reply to U.S. Republican lawmakers who claimed that Korea was mistreating the U.S.-listed e-commerce company Coupang, contending that Seoul is, in fact, conducting only "a nondiscriminatory and fair" investigation.

The Korean Embassy in Washington had sent a formal letter under the name of the Korean ambassador to the United States, Kang Kyung-wha, according to Seoul’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday.

The ministry said the Korean government will continue to maintain a nondiscriminatory approach toward U.S. digital companies, including Coupang, and will keep the U.S. Congress informed.

In November of last year, it was reported that data from 33.7 million Coupang accounts had been leaked earlier in the year. Korean authorities launched an investigation into the U.S.-listed company and sought to summon the company's chief, Bom Kim, for audits in the National Assembly.

The recent clarification from Seoul is a response to an earlier complaint lodged by 54 Republican representatives from the U.S. House on April 20. The complaint mainly defended Coupang over the data leak and urged Korean authorities “to end its targeted assault of American companies immediately.”

“The ROK recently leveraged a low-sensitivity data leak in November 2025 as a pretext to launch a whole-of-government assault on Coupang, including threats to revoke the company’s business licenses […],” the statement read, referring to Korea by the initialism for its official name, the Republic of Korea.

The issue surrounding Coupang has since escalated into a broader point of friction between Seoul and Washington.

U.S. officials recently told their Korean counterparts that it would be difficult to move forward with a high-level bilateral consultative channel for a security agreement unless Kim, the founder of Coupang, is at no legal risk. The security agreement is a part of the outcome of the Korea-U.S. summit and stipulated in the bilateral Joint Fact Sheet. Seoul is said to be uneasy about Washington’s position.

Korea’s domestic political sphere is also involved in the ongoing war of nerves over Coupang. A total of 90 Korean lawmakers from the ruling Democratic Party and minor liberal parties delivered a protest letter to the U.S. Embassy in Seoul on April 28.

“The demands from the U.S. Congress regarding Coupang infringe upon the judicial sovereignty of the Republic of Korea,” the Korean lawmakers said.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY YOON JI-WON [[email protected]]