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Members of civic groups hold a press conference at the offices of the People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy on Dec. 10, 2025, where they call for compensation from Coupang for its leak of customer data and take applications for collective dispute mediation. (Yonhap)

Thursday marked day three of the police’s raid on the headquarters of Korean e-commerce giant Coupang following a leak of the personal information of around 33.7 million customers. The day before, civic groups applied for collective dispute mediation on behalf of over 600 victims of the leak.

In addition to the leak of personal information, Coupang has habitually exploited its market dominance to push through unfair deals and is regularly accused of downplaying or covering up workplace accidents. Coupang Inc. chairman Kim Bom-suk (known as Kim Bom in the US), the person with the ultimate authority for decisions at Coupang, needs to take full responsibility for the leak and pledge truly transformative reform measures.

The National Assembly’s Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee will hold a hearing on the personal information leak at Coupang on Wednesday, Dec. 17. Kim is one of six people at Coupang who have been asked to testify during the hearing. But thus far, it’s widely expected that Kim will not attend.

As the founder of Coupang, Kim holds 74.3% of voting rights at parent company Coupang Inc. (which has a 100% stake in Coupang Corp. in Korea). That means Kim exercises effective control over the online retailer. Nevertheless, Kim has remained silent, without even commenting on this unprecedented leak of personal information.

Even Coupang Korea CEO Park Dae-jun, who had promised to take full responsibility for seeing this issue through, abruptly stepped down on Wednesday. Harold Rogers, chief administrative officer and general counsel for Coupang Inc., is supposed to take over as interim CEO and deal with the fallout in his place.

While Coupang said the assignment of the executive from headquarters is an aggressive response to the situation, it’s hard not to suspect that Coupang Inc. is deploying its general counsel to minimize its legal liability.

It’s time for Kim Bom-suk to stop cowering behind these figurehead CEOs and to face the Korean public. While Koreans were shocked by the massive leak of private information, Coupang’s attitude has infuriated them. On top of its foot-dragging, Coupang sought to duck responsibility by arguing that an undeniable leak of private information had only been “exposure.”

Most intolerably, the person with the actual responsibility for management still refuses to speak. If not Kim, who exactly is supposed to explain what security vulnerabilities were behind the leak or what steps will be taken to prevent another leak from occurring?

In an economic briefing by the relevant ministries on Thursday, Korean President Lee Jae Myung spoke of the need to increase not just criminal punishment for corporate lawbreaking, but also financial sanctions. Lee singled out Coupang for criticism, remarking that the executives there were probably not afraid of punishment.

The only way to prevent another leak on this scale is to make meaningful systemic changes, such as giving real teeth to the system of punitive damages.

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr]