South Korea's Fair Trade Commission has imposed provisional fines totalling 631.9 billion won, about $466 million, on the country's two largest food-delivery platforms, Baemin and Coupang Eats, after finding that they abused their dominant market positions.

The regulator announced on Monday 9 November that Woowa Brothers, which operates Baemin, faces a provisional fine of 331.1 billion won, while Coupang faces 300.8 billion won. Together, the two services accounted for more than 90 per cent of South Korea's food-delivery market by order value in 2025, with Baemin at 58.45 per cent and Coupang Eats at 34.44 per cent.

The commission said both platforms imposed most-favoured-nation requirements on restaurants, obliging them to offer prices and other trading terms at least as favourable as those available on rival platforms. It found that the rules restricted restaurants' freedom to set prices, pushed up menu prices for customers and made it harder for new rivals to enter the market.

What the regulator found

Coupang enforced the requirements from July 2023 to January 2026, removing restaurants from its Wow storefront if they did not comply. Baemin imposed similar conditions from May 2024 to October 2025. Baemin was also penalised for pushing restaurants towards its own delivery service and for displaying delivery estimates that made restaurant delivery appear slower.

Coupang said it would challenge the decision through legal proceedings. The fines are provisional, and the final amounts will be settled before the regulator issues its written decision.