Woowa Brothers, Coupang face $465 mil. in fines for abusing delivery market dominance

Woowa Brothers and Coupang have been hit with a total of 631.9 billion won ($465 million) in fines from Korea's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for dominating the country's food delivery market. This abuse of power involved forcing affiliated restaurants to offer consumers prices and promotional terms no less favorable than those available through competing channels.

The FTC has ordered the companies to rectify these unfair practices and has imposed provisional fines of 331.1 billion won on Woowa Brothers, the operator of the Baemin delivery platform, and 300.8 billion won on Coupang, which operates Coupang Eats. Together, these two platforms hold over 90 percent market share in the nation's food delivery industry.

The FTC's investigation revealed that both companies used their dominant positions to impose "most-favored-nation" (MFN) requirements on restaurants. These requirements limited the restaurants' ability to offer different prices, discounts, and other terms through rival delivery platforms. The FTC stated that these practices made it difficult for restaurants to establish more favorable conditions with other platforms, thereby weakening competition in the Korean food delivery market.