Korea Fines Baemin $2.4B Won, Coupang Eats $2.1B Won Over Delivery Pricing

South Korea's antitrust regulator has fined the country's two dominant delivery apps a combined 631.9 billion won — 331.1 billion won against Baemin, 300.8 billion won against Coupang Eats — for abusing market dominance through most-favored-nation demands (a requirement that merchants offer terms no better to rival platforms).

The Korea Fair Trade Commission announced the penalties, both provisional, on October 9, along with corrective orders. Baemin also received a rare price re-order: it must either create a new restaurant-self-delivery fee schedule or adjust the commission rate on its existing one. Baemin, operated by Woowa Brothers, held 58.45% of the delivery app market last year; Coupang Eats held 34.44%. Combined, the two platforms control roughly 93% of the market.

How were the fines calculated?

The commission pegged each fine to related revenue. For Coupang, it counted the sales of every merchant in regions where its WOW Store program operated — 50.149 trillion won — yielding a 300.8 billion won penalty. For Baemin, it bundled 40.65 trillion won in self-delivery revenue within Baemin Club regions, producing a 160.3 billion won fine for the MFN demands alone.

Two further findings against Baemin:

• Forcing merchants onto its higher-priced self-delivery service: related revenue of 57.5 trillion won, a 155.4 billion won fine.
• Deceptive advertising of delivery times: related revenue of 34.3 trillion won, a 15.4 billion won fine.

What did the platforms actually do?

Coupang entered the market late and kept its commission at 9.8% — higher than competitors — while using WOW Store status as leverage. From July 2023 through this January, it demanded most-favored terms from merchants across six conditions, including menu prices and minimum order amounts. Baemin countered from May 2024 through last October, using Baemin Club benefits to extract the same demands on three conditions. Merchants who refused lost their Baemin Club Store or WOW Store status.

The pressure worked. WOW Store compliance rose from 13.49% to 93.78%. Baemin Club participation climbed from 62.57% to 79.68%. Price competition between the platforms collapsed, and the cost landed on consumers: Baemin self-delivery menu prices rose 350 won, restaurant-self-delivery prices 1,650 won. Minimum order amounts rose 665 won on Coupang and 212 won on Baemin.

Commissioner Hwang Won-chul said the two duopolists, with a combined share above 90%, "set commission rates at a high and identical level, and merchant trading conditions converged — an effect on competition comparable in strength to an actual cartel."

The manipulated clocks behind Baemin's self-delivery push

Baemin inflated its displayed delivery-time estimates for restaurant-self-delivery by 13.1 minutes while showing its own self-delivery options as 1.2 to 1.7 minutes faster. In reality, restaurant-self-delivery averaged 31.5 minutes — slower than single-address delivery at 27.4 minutes, but 1.4 minutes faster than budget delivery at 32.9 minutes. The platform also enlarged the self-delivery exposure button on its interface more than sixfold and unilaterally abolished Ultra Call, the 88,000-won flat-rate plan for restaurant-self-delivery, to push merchants toward its 9.8% commission service.

The shift was dramatic. Restaurant-self-delivery merchants fell from 256,000 in June 2021 to 91,000 by last July. Self-delivery merchants grew from 64,000 to 271,000 over the same period.

Coupang's phantom-revenue commissions

The commission also found Coupang charged commissions on revenue that never existed. When merchants issued discount coupons at their own expense, Coupang levied up to 7.8% in intermediary commission plus 3% in payment fees on the pre-discount list price rather than the amount customers actually paid. From 2023 through June 2025, this practice extracted more than 32.4 billion won in commissions on self-funded discounts.

A separate allegation — bundling of WOW membership with Coupang Eats — will proceed through its own review. The commission issued a re-examination order, citing the matter's importance.

Hwang said the action should "restore competition in the delivery app and delivery service markets and improve conditions for merchants, new and public delivery apps, and independent couriers," adding that the commission will enforce the law strictly against domestic and foreign operators alike.