Key facts
- The FTC said Baemin and Coupang Eats held 58.45% and 34.44% of South Korea's food delivery market by order value in 2025.
- The FTC said Coupang stripped restaurants of Wow status from July 2023 to January 2026 if they did not meet its terms.
- Coupang said no Wow Restaurant status agreements were terminated in the period the FTC cited.
- Coupang said the fine was more than 600 times the 2013 penalty on Yogiyo for similar violations.
- The FTC said Baemin limited delivery fee discounts for Baemin Club subscribers from May 2024 to October 2025.
- The FTC said the fine amounts are provisional and ordered a reexamination of a separate Coupang tying case.
South Korea's Fair Trade Commission said on November 9 it will fine Woowa Brothers Corp., the operator of delivery app Baemin, 331.1 billion won ($243 million) and Coupang Corp. 300.8 billion won for abusing market dominance to restrict competition. The watchdog said the two companies, which run Baemin and Coupang Eats, pressured partner restaurants to offer terms at least as favorable as those on competing platforms.
The FTC said the most favored nation requirements undermined competition, drove up food prices and made it harder for new entrants to join the delivery app market. Baemin and Coupang Eats accounted for 58.45 percent and 34.44 percent of South Korea's food delivery app market by order value in 2025, according to the regulator.
According to the FTC, Coupang enforced the requirements from July 2023 to January 2026 by stripping restaurants of their Wow restaurant status if they failed to meet conditions covering menu prices, minimum order amounts and other trading terms. The status gave customers on Coupang's Wow membership program delivery benefits at participating restaurants. The share of partner restaurants designated as Wow restaurants rose from 13 percent in July 2023 to 94 percent in October 2025, the FTC said.
Coupang said no Wow Restaurant status agreements had been terminated during the period in question. It said the fine was disproportionate, arguing it was more than 600 times the penalty imposed on Yogiyo in 2013 for similar violations even though Yogiyo was a dominant player. Coupang also said the FTC had included sales from restaurants unrelated to the case in calculating the fine, pushing it into the hundreds of billions of won and undermining its right to defend itself.
Baemin imposed similar requirements from May 2024 to October 2025, limiting delivery fee discounts for Baemin Club subscribers to orders from restaurants meeting its conditions, the FTC said. The regulator said the share of Baemin Club stores meeting the conditions rose from 63 percent in May 2024 to 80 percent in January 2025. The FTC also sanctioned Baemin for effectively forcing restaurants to move from its Market Place service, where restaurants arrange deliveries themselves, to its Own Delivery service, where the platform handles deliveries. FTC estimates put Baemin's revenue as a share of transaction value at 28 percent for Own Delivery orders in 2024 against 7.8 percent for Market Place orders.
With the two businesses accounting for more than 90 percent of the market, the FTC said their simultaneous imposition of the requirements and alignment of trading terms restricted competition in a manner similar to collusion. The watchdog said the measures were expected to give restaurants greater freedom to set menu prices and minimum order amounts and encourage new platforms to enter the market.
In response, the two companies said, "Upon receiving the regulator's final written decision, we will thoroughly review its contents." Coupang said it would fully present its position through the appropriate legal channels. The FTC said the fine amounts are provisional and ordered a reexamination of a separate case involving Coupang's alleged tying of delivery and streaming services to its Wow membership program, citing differences in interpretation over what constituted the primary and tied products.