Coupang data breach incident: Korea Consumer Agency launches collective dispute mediation

According to The Financial News, the Korea Consumer Agency (KCA) announced on the 7th that it has decided to initiate collective dispute mediation procedures over Coupang's personal data breach incident and Lotte Rental's bundled product sales.
The Consumer Dispute Mediation Committee determined that in both cases a large number of consumers suffered damage and that the key factual and legal issues are essentially the same. It therefore concluded that the requirements to open the procedure had been met.
The Coupang case was reopened after it was confirmed that the scale of the personal data breach was larger than initially known. Coupang became aware of the personal data breach incident on November 17 last year and reported on November 19 that information from 4,536 accounts had been leaked. On November 29, it confirmed that information from about 33.7 million accounts had been compromised, and in February this year it additionally reported that delivery address information for more than 165,000 accounts had also been leaked, on top of the existing breach. In addition, a Public-Private Joint Investigation Team under the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that information on more than 33.67 million Coupang users had been exposed.
The Lotte Rental bundled product dispute case concerns alleged damage arising from the structure of its combined product sales. From August 2017 to August 2023, Lotte Rental operated the rental platform "MYOMEE" and sold products that bundled electronic devices with funeral or travel services. Consumers say they were told they would receive free gifts or pay no rental fees and purchased the products on that basis. However, they claim the structure in fact required them to pay in installments an amount exceeding the price of the electronic devices, and they have applied for collective dispute mediation.
The committee plans to publicly announce the launch of the collective dispute mediation procedure on the KCA website and in daily newspapers by May 4. If the businesses accept the proposed mediation plan, the committee will obtain their compensation plans and pursue a compensation scheme that also covers consumers who did not directly participate in the mediation.
The mediation procedure must be completed within 30 days from the end of the public announcement period. If necessary, it may be extended twice, each time for up to 30 days.
localplace@fnnews.com Kim Hyun-ji Reporter