Authorities have consistently discriminated against US-based Coupang, a campaign that escalated with numerous investigations after a data breach at the e-commerce firm last year, the US House Judiciary Committee said in an interim report.
Those actions were part of long-standing economic discrimination against US and other foreign companies, the report said, adding that such discrimination “directly violates” a recent bilateral trade agreement.
South Korean foreign ministry spokesperson Park Il yesterday said the report was one-sided, reflecting only claims by Coupang despite the government communicating with the committee for months.
Allegations of discrimination against Coupang and other US firms were untrue, he added.
Coupang, the biggest online retailer in South Korea but based in Seattle, became the target of much regulatory scrutiny and public ire last year after news of the breach became known.
A former employee was able to access customer information associated with as many as 33.7 million accounts.
Coupang later said the person only stored and retained information relating to about 3,000 accounts.
After the breach, “South Korea escalated its attacks into a ‘whole-of-government assault on Coupang’,” according to the report by the Republican-controlled committee, which said its findings were informed by documents and testimony from Coupang.
The report said more than 10 South Korean agencies initiated dozens of unrelated investigations into Coupang following the breach, issuing over 4,000 document requests and conducting at least 652 interviews with Coupang employees.
It also said that South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) forced Coupang to engage in a dangerous recovery operation that involved sending an employee to China and retrieving devices and sworn statements from the former employee responsible for the breach.
As part of that, Coupang hired divers to retrieve a discarded laptop from a river, and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung was briefed on the recovery operation, the report said.
The NIS denied in December that it had directed Coupang’s probe or recovery efforts, saying it had only requested materials from the company. — Reuters
