South Korea’s two largest food delivery apps received the biggest-ever penalty in the sector after they forced merchants to match trading terms offered on rival apps. The Fair Trade Commission said on Nov. 9 it will impose corrective orders and fines on Woowa Brothers, operator of Baedal Minjok, and Coupang, operator of Coupang Eats, for abusing market dominance. Provisional fines are 331.1 billion won for Woowa Brothers and 300.8 billion won for Coupang, totaling 631.9 billion won.

The FTC said the most-favoured-nation requirement it flagged refers to forcing food prices, minimum order amounts and other terms to match levels on other apps. It said the two companies, with a combined market share exceeding 90 percent, demanded this at the same time, producing an outcome similar to collusion. The FTC judged they blocked competition among platforms by forcing identical conditions instead of competing on fees. It explained that while Coupang kept its commission rate at 9.8 percent, Baemin raised its rate from 6.8 percent in August 2024 to the same level, leading to menu price increases.

Coupang, a later entrant in the industry, first applied discounts for paid membership "Wow" members only to orders at "Wow Stores". From July 2023, it removed from Wow Stores merchants whose six trading terms, including menu prices, fell short of the most-favoured-nation standard. The share of Wow Stores rose from about 13 percent to 94 percent in October 2025.

Coupang also calculated brokerage commissions paid by merchants based not on what consumers actually paid but on pre-discount prices. That effectively charged commissions on amounts merchants discounted at their own expense. The FTC said it viewed the contract clause as unfavorable to merchants and ordered it to be corrected.

As Coupang expanded its market share, Baemin from May 2024 to October 2025 designated only merchants using its own delivery service that met three conditions as "Baemin Club Stores" and concentrated delivery-fee discounts on them. The share jumped from about 63 percent to 80 percent. Baemin sought to increase use of its own delivery service, which it said generated more profit than merchant-run delivery.

It reduced exposure of merchant-run delivery on the app screen and also scrapped "Ultra Call", an advertising product under which merchant-run delivery businesses paid a fixed monthly amount. From April 2023 to July 2025, merchant-run delivery actually arrived 1.4 minutes earlier than Baemin’s own delivery, but the app displayed it as taking 13.0 minutes longer. The FTC explained that Baemin did not inform consumers even though the two services used different methods to calculate estimated time.

The FTC also designated as subject to sanctions the acts of reducing exposure of merchant-run delivery and scrapping the fixed-fee "Ultra Call". It said that from April 2023 to July 2025, merchant-run delivery was actually 1.4 minutes faster than Baemin’s own delivery but was displayed as 13.0 minutes slower in estimated time.

The alleged tying charge involving Coupang did not reach a conclusion in this decision. The suspicion is that providing Coupang Eats’ "Economy Delivery" and the online video service (OTT) "Coupang Play" for free to Wow members was effectively bundling products. The FTC ordered a re-examination, saying deliberations could not be sufficiently conducted because Coupang and the examiner differed in their interpretations over which product was the main product and which was the tied product.

Coupang objected to the FTC’s decision. It argued that when it introduced the Wow Store policy its market share was only 7 percent, meaning it did not meet the standard for a market-dominant operator. It also cited that for 1 year after free delivery was implemented, participating store owners’ sales rose an average of 98 percent per store. Coupang also raised fairness concerns, saying the penalty is more than 600 times larger than the fixed fine of 468 million won imposed on a delivery app company A in the past for similar allegations. It said fines of 25.0 billion to 42.0 billion won in an examiner’s report it received in October 2025 swelled more than tenfold after the calculation basis was changed to total delivery sales. Coupang plans to review the written decision and then explain itself through legal procedures.

Woowa Brothers said it has explained that there was no illegality, but that was not accepted, which it said it regretted. The company said, "As soon as we receive the Fair Trade Commission’s written decision, we will closely review the details," and added, "We will continue efforts for mutual growth for a delivery ecosystem that grows together with stakeholders."