Korea Fines Baemin and Coupang Eats a Combined $631.9B Won

Korea's antitrust regulator has hit the country's two dominant food delivery apps with a combined 631.9 billion won in provisional fines — the largest penalty it has ever imposed in a delivery-app case. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) fined Woowa Brothers, which runs Baemin and is controlled by Germany's Delivery Hero, 331.1 billion won. Coupang, which operates Coupang Eats, received 300.8 billion won. Both companies deny wrongdoing and say they will consider appealing once they receive the written decision.

The charge: the apps used membership perks to stop restaurants from offering better deals on rival platforms.

What did the apps actually do?

At the heart of the case sit most-favoured-nation (MFN) clauses — requirements that prevent sellers from offering better prices or terms on competing platforms.

The KFTC found Coupang Eats charged restaurants higher fees than Baemin. Restaurants passed those costs on through higher menu prices on Coupang's app. Rather than lower its fees, Coupang moved to eliminate price differences across platforms, according to the regulator.

From July 2023 to January 2026, restaurants that failed to match or beat rival terms on six items — menu prices, minimum order values and discounts among them — risked losing 'Wow' status, which gave paying members discounts and free delivery. From August 2023 to June 2024, Coupang also ran an internal system the KFTC said let it "unilaterally modify restaurants' transaction terms at any time."

Baemin followed suit. From May 2024 to October 2025, its Baemin Club subscription imposed three conditions on participating restaurants. To fund the perks, Baemin raised commission on orders delivered by its own riders from 6.8% to 9.8%, matching Coupang's rate. Restaurants, in effect, paid for the perks diners thought were free.

The pressure worked. The KFTC counted 57,907 restaurants that lost Wow status at least once. Average daily sales at restaurants kicked out of Coupang's programme fell from 220,000 won to 90,000 won; at Baemin's, from 110,000 won to 30,000 won. Compliance with Coupang's terms rose from about 13% of Wow restaurants to 94%.

Consumers gained little. Of the 62,378 restaurants that accepted Coupang's demands, 75% later changed their Baemin terms in ways less favourable to diners, NoCut News reported. Many complied by worsening terms on the rival app, not improving them on Coupang's.

What else did the KFTC find?

Baemin faced two additional charges. From August 2023 it allegedly pushed restaurants off its cheaper marketplace model — where outlets arrange their own deliveries — toward its pricier in-house delivery service. It cut marketplace restaurants' visibility and scrapped a flat-fee advertising plan. In March 2025 it merged restaurant listings, blocking outlets from setting different minimum order values by delivery method.

Marketplace restaurants fell from 256,000 in June 2021 to 91,000 in July 2025, the KFTC said, while independent delivery agencies also lost business. The regulator further found Baemin displayed delivery estimates that made marketplace orders look about 13 minutes slower than its own deliveries — even though marketplace orders actually arrived 1.4 minutes faster.

Coupang told Reuters the penalty is excessive — more than 600 times the fine in a comparable 2020 case involving another delivery app. It says its Wow programme, funded in full by Coupang, aimed to give diners affordable prices and free delivery while lifting restaurant sales, and that "there was not a single unauthorised termination" under the policy.

How did the regulator frame the case?

The case rests on Korea's Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act, which bars dominant firms from abusing their position. The KFTC classed both apps as dominant and found two harms: the platforms undermined restaurants' pricing autonomy, and by imposing similar restrictions over overlapping periods, they produced market effects the regulator likened to collusion — uniformly high fees and aligned terms — without any explicit agreement.

Smaller platforms suffered too. Their core advantage — lower commissions letting restaurants price more competitively — was effectively neutralised.

"The act in this case, which severely infringed upon the vendors' right to determine transaction conditions, is contrary to normal trading practices," KFTC standing commissioner Hwang Won-chul said, according to MBC. The regulator also classified the conduct as abuse of superior bargaining position and Baemin's delivery-time displays as deceptive advertising.

Could Grab, Gojek and others face the same scrutiny?

What does this change for platforms beyond Korea? Plenty, if regional precedent holds.

China set the template in October 2021, when the State Administration for Market Regulation fined Meituan 3.44 billion yuan (about US$533 million) for its 'choose one of two' exclusivity practice, in place since 2018, and ordered it to refund 1.29 billion yuan in merchant deposits, Caixin reported.

In India, following a 2021 complaint by the National Restaurant Association of India, Competition Commission investigators found that exclusivity arrangements and price-parity clauses used by Zomato and Swiggy could violate competition law, according to Reuters and Business Standard. Zomato says it has dropped price-parity requirements; a final ruling is pending.

Southeast Asia has been softer. Malaysia cleared foodpanda in 2023 over an exclusivity arrangement, concluding it could not establish dominance — a competitor held 60% of the market by order value in 2022, per law firm Skrine's summary. An August 2025 submission called for a probe into Grab's Signature Merchant arrangements, alleging brands needed written consent before joining rivals. Malaysia's Court of Appeal in March 2025 quashed a proposed RM86.77 million fine against Grab over driver restrictions, citing procedural shortcomings.

The Korean fines signal that subscription perks, however popular with diners, can amount to price control when compliance is coerced. Expect membership programmes across Asia's platform economy to face sharper questions about what merchants give up to stay listed.