An old saying about others doing the work while someone else takes the money has resurfaced in South Korea as questions grow over Coupang’s structure and conduct.
Built on a logistics network supported by 35 million Korean consumers, with Korean workers making pre-dawn deliveries and Korean small businesses paying platform fees, Coupang posted last year’s results of 45.4555 trillion won in revenue, 2.2883 trillion won in operating profit and 1.5891 trillion won in net profit. Operating profit rose 40.9% from a year earlier and net profit increased 37%, even as South Korea was shaken that year by a personal data leak.
Coupang’s Korean unit then paid an interim dividend of 1.4659 trillion won to its parent, the U.S.-based Coupang Inc., which owns it 100%. The payout exceeded 90% of net profit.
Coupang has said the transfer was not a shareholder cash dividend but a funding move to reinvest in global growth businesses such as Taiwan, and that the source was not Korean operating profit but part of paid-in capital surplus from past overseas investors. The explanation may be difficult to dispute on accounting grounds. Critics, however, question whether it is reasonable that the trust costs from the data leak were borne by Korean users and society while profits flowed overseas.
The issue escalated further with lobbying in Washington. Coupang spent $1.785 million on U.S. lobbying in the first quarter of this year, nearly double the previous quarter. Its in-house lobbying rose to $1.09 million, and it newly hired outside firms including Ballard Partners, Crossroads Strategies, and Williams & Jensen. The reported targets expanded beyond the Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to include the White House, the Office of the Vice President and the National Security Council.
The fallout soon returned to Seoul. Fifty-four Republican members of the U.S. House sent an open letter to Ambassador Kang Kyung-wha, arguing the South Korean government discriminates against U.S. companies such as Coupang. They described the leak involving data on 35 million people as a release of “low-sensitivity” information. In South Korea, Coupang is widely seen as daily-life infrastructure rather than a simple consumer choice, and critics say the lawmakers’ wording underscored the core of the dispute.
Concerns have also grown that the corporate dispute could become entangled with U.S.-South Korea security talks, including issues such as nuclear-powered submarines and uranium enrichment and reprocessing.
Wi Sung-lac, head of South Korea’s National Security Office, said, “Coupang is a corporate issue, but it is true that this issue is affecting security consultations between South Korea and the United States,” while drawing a line by calling it an “undesirable connection.” He said questions of corporate illegality should be handled through law and procedure, and security negotiations through security logic, warning that mixing the two risks turning the rule of law into a bargaining chip and the alliance into a transaction.
The article argues South Korea’s government and political circles should not treat the matter as an emotional issue, saying anti-American sentiment, anti-business sentiment and nationalism are not answers. It calls for a fact-based accounting: how much Coupang earned in South Korea, how much it paid out, when and by how much lobbying funds increased, how far lobbying targets expanded, and the scale of harm from the data leak and whether follow-up steps were adequate.
It says foreign companies should not be treated unfairly, but U.S. companies should not receive exceptions, adding that mature alliances build trust by respecting each other’s laws and institutions and that an alliance cannot serve as a shield against the rule of law.
“Korea did the work,” the article concludes, arguing that seeking accountability through the rule of law is a matter of common sense, not emotion.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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