SEOUL, July 14 (AJP) -A South Korean appeals court on Monday suspended the antitrust regulator's decision designating Coupang founder and Chairman Bom Kim as the controlling individual of the U.S.-listed e-commerce giant, handing the company an early legal victory in a closely watched dispute over Korea's conglomerate rules.
The Seoul High Court granted part of Coupang's request for an injunction, temporarily halting the Korea Fair Trade Commission's May 1 decision to change the group's legal "same person" designation from Coupang Inc. to Kim until 30 days after a final court ruling in the main administrative lawsuit.
The court also suspended the FTC's order requiring Coupang to submit documents related to Kim that had been requested in April as part of the designation process.
"The applicant faces a risk of irreparable harm if the order takes effect immediately, and there is insufficient evidence that suspending the measure would undermine the public interest," the court said in its ruling.
The FTC in April redesignated Kim as Coupang's "same person," a legal term referring to the ultimate controlling entity of a business group under South Korea's Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act.
The move shifted the designation from the corporate entity Coupang Inc. to Kim himself, making the company subject to the full disclosure and governance requirements imposed on family-controlled conglomerates.
The regulator argued Coupang no longer qualified for the exception allowing a corporation to be designated as the controlling entity because Kim's younger brother, Kim Yoo-seok, had effectively participated in management through his involvement in logistics and delivery operations.
The decision marked the first time a founder of a U.S.-incorporated company operating in South Korea had been designated as the controlling individual of a large business group under Korea's antitrust regime.
Coupang immediately challenged the designation, arguing that neither Kim nor his relatives own shares in the group's Korean affiliates and therefore there is no possibility of private-interest transactions that the regulations are designed to prevent.
"As a U.S.-listed company, we are already subject to stringent disclosure obligations," the company has said, describing the FTC's decision as duplicative regulation that applies traditional chaebol rules to a globally listed technology company.
Had the designation taken effect, Kim would have been required to disclose family shareholdings and governance information annually, while transactions involving relatives and related entities would have become subject to expanded regulatory scrutiny under Korea's conglomerate regulations.
The legal battle is expected to center on whether managerial influence exercised by a family member, absent ownership, is sufficient to justify designating an individual rather than a corporate entity as the controlling person of a business group.
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