Coupang follows 'U.S. playbook' for aftermath of data leak, prioritizing investors over customers

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Coupang follows 'U.S. playbook' for aftermath of data leak, prioritizing investors over customers

Published: 30 Dec. 2025, 13:50 Updated: 30 Dec. 2025, 17:28

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Participants hold signs criticizing Coupang for the personal information data leak in front of Coupang's headquarters in Songpa District, southern Seoul, on Dec. 29. [JANG JIN-YOUNG]

Consumers are growing increasingly baffled by how Coupang is handling the aftermath of the data leak, but one thing appears to be clear: The company has the U.S. investors' best interests at heart, not those of the users who suffered from the data breach.

Although more than 90 percent of Coupang’s revenue comes from Korea, the company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, which functionally makes it a U.S. firm.

“What Coupang fears most is its U.S. investors,” said one company insider who requested anonymity. “Even after the breach, the main concern [for executives] was whether the stock price would drop. If you had to rank priorities, No. 1 is the U.S. market, and No. 2 is customer attrition.”

A group of U.S. Coupang investors recently put forward a class-action suit against the e-commerce company, alleging that Coupang was aware of the data breach but failed to disclose it to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission — a possible violation of reporting regulations.

A Coupang delivery truck is seen parked in front of a logistics center in Seoul on Dec. 30. [NEWS1]

Coupang’s leadership structure is another point of contention. Over half of the executive team at the U.S.-based Coupang is American. Coupang's founder and chairman, Kim Bom, is a Korean American who moved to the United States at age seven and is married to a Taiwanese American. Other key executives, including interim Korea CEO Harold Rogers, Chief Financial Officer Gaurav Anand, Chief Information Security Officer Brett Matthes and Chief Accounting Officer Jonathan Lee, are also American.

“Other than frontline teams handling sales, lobbying or media relations, most of Coupang’s leadership consists of foreigners,” said one company representative. “They don’t understand Korean sentiment. No matter how much we explain the cause of the backlash, they respond, ‘There’s no legal problem, so what’s the issue?’”

Coupang's crisis management has also closely followed a U.S. playbook. After the breach was discovered, the first directive from leadership was to examine how U.S.-listed companies handled similar incidents.

Coupang interim CEO Harold Rogers swears an oath before appearing at a National Assembly hearing on the Coupang data breach at the National Assembly building in Yeouido, western Seoul, on Dec. 30. [NEWS1]

Some Korean executives reportedly cited SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won, who publicly apologized in April after a data breach at SK Telecom, as an example, and urged Kim to do the same.

But the American executives dismissed the idea, allegedly saying, “In the United States, company owners don't apologize for data breaches,” and insisted the company should focus on conducting an internal investigation first.

Coupang has clashed with government authorities over the handling of the investigation. Even as a joint public-private task force led by Minister of Science and ICT Bae Kyung-hoon began its inquiry, Coupang launched its own investigation and unilaterally released its findings, leading to a dispute with the government over the accuracy of the facts.

“We proposed sharing interim findings with the government, but its rejected the idea,” said a senior Coupang worker. “We believed it was better to reassure customers as quickly as possible by announcing that no further breaches had occurred, so we went ahead and released [our investigation's results].”

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 CHOI HYUN-JU, NOH YU-RIM [[email protected]]