A South Korean appeals court has put on hold a government ruling that named Kim Bom, the Korean-American founder of U.S.-listed e-commerce company Coupang, as the group’s controlling entity.
The Seoul High Court approved an injunction requested by both Coupang and Kim on Tuesday, freezing the designation while the broader legal case moves forward, according to court documents.
In its decision, the court stated it acted because of “an urgent need to prevent irreparable harm” to those who filed the request. The court also found no indication that blocking the Fair Trade Commission’s measure would work against the public interest.
The freeze will stay in place until 30 days after the court issues its final ruling in the main lawsuit, at which point judges will determine whether the FTC’s designation was legally valid.
The FTC had made its original designation back in April, identifying Kim as the group’s controlling person under South Korean fair trade law. That change replaced Coupang itself as the group’s “same person” under that legal framework and brought additional disclosure and governance obligations for the company.
Coupang took the matter to court after the FTC’s move, which followed an agency investigation into the role played by Kim’s family members in the company’s operations. The scrutiny came at a time when Coupang was already under heightened regulatory attention following a significant customer data breach.
South Korea’s regulatory actions against Coupang — including a separate record-setting fine handed down by the Personal Information Protection Commission related to the data breach — have created friction between South Korea and the United States over how the company has been treated.
