Key Points
- Investors sued Coupang in the U.S. over a massive data breach. The leak exposed personal data for over 33 million customers.
- A former employee reportedly accessed internal systems for several months.
- The lawsuit claims executives lied about the strength of their security.
- A top executive at a Coupang subsidiary resigned following the scandal.
Investors are taking the South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang to court in the United States. A new class-action lawsuit alleges the company violated securities laws following a major cybersecurity breach. This breach exposed the personal information of more than 33 million customers, causing a massive headache for the company, often called the “Amazon of South Korea.”
Coupang discovered the problem on November 18. According to the lawsuit, a former employee managed to keep access to the company’s internal systems for months after leaving. During that time, the individual could see customer names, email addresses, delivery locations, and order histories.
While Coupang says the breach did not expose payment details or passwords, the sheer scale of the leak is enough to trigger serious legal trouble.
The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court, targets the company’s top leadership, including CEO Bom Kim and CFO Gaurav Anand. Investors argue that these executives misled them by claiming the company’s security was much stronger than it actually was. They also claim that Coupang failed to comply with U.S. rules requiring public companies to report major data breaches promptly.
By waiting too long to come clean, investors say the company kept its stock price artificially high while hiding a major risk.
The fallout from the breach has already begun. Park Dae-jun, the CEO of the company’s main subsidiary, resigned earlier this month. Authorities in South Korea are also running their own investigations into how the company handled its data. The lawsuit is now seeking money for anyone who bought Coupang stock between early August and mid-December of this year.
Coupang has publicly apologized for the leak and promised to tighten its security to make sure it never happens again. However, the company has not yet commented on the specific claims in the lawsuit.
Because Coupang is a massive player in the global market and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, this legal battle in California could have a huge impact on its future.
