Coupang has booked $410m for two Korean privacy fines, and $132m of it has nothing to do with the data breach
$410m came out of one quarter.
Coupang reported a second-quarter operating loss of $556m on Tuesday, against operating income of $149m in the same quarter last year. The swing is $705m. Most of it is one accrual: $410m for two administrative fines announced by Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission on 10 June, recorded inside operating, general and administrative expenses. Net loss attributable to stockholders was $570m, or $0.32 a share, against net income of $32m and $0.02 a year earlier.
Revenue did not fall. Total net revenues were $8,856m against $8,524m, up 4 percent, and up 10 percent on the company's constant currency measure.
Two fines, and only one of them is about the breach
The quarterly report separates them. The larger, about $278m, relates to what the filing calls the Incident, which it describes as unauthorized access to customer accounts by a former employee, discovered in November 2025. The second, about $132m, is described in the same note as unrelated to the Incident. It alleges that Coupang Corp. violated Korea's Personal Information Protection Act in connection with the collection and storage of data related to a third-party advertising program.
The commission has not yet issued its formal written decisions. The filing says so plainly, and adds that the final findings, fine amounts and corrective measures may differ from what was announced on 10 June.
The clauses that decide when the money moves
Coupang says it intends to pursue judicial relief in the Seoul Administrative Court. Two sentences in the same note govern what that appeal is worth in the meantime. The appeal does not pause the bill. Payments to the commission are not automatically stayed during an appeal, and they are not deductible for income tax purposes, which the filing gives as one of the reasons its effective tax rate for the quarter came out negative.
The charge also moved a ratio the company reports on. Administrative fines raised operating, general and administrative expenses as a share of revenue by 4.6 percentage points in the quarter, and by 2.4 points across the half.
What the adjusted figures leave out
Coupang publishes an adjusted operating loss of $146m and adjusted EBITDA of $163m, both of which exclude the $410m. Its own definition of that adjustment says it takes in only significant regulatory fines the company does not consider normal operating expenses for its operations, business strategy, industry and regulatory environment.
Other pages of the same document describe a regulatory environment that keeps producing them. The filing states that the Incident has increased the Korean government's focus on the business, that investigations by Korean authorities have resulted in criminal complaints against certain current and former executives and employees, and that further financial penalties or corrective actions may follow. A separate Fair Trade Commission matter dating from 2021 is still running, with a criminal hearing listed for this month and a maximum penalty under the indictment of about $200,000. A second Fair Trade Commission proceeding, over the bundling of Eats benefits with the WOW membership, goes to a hearing tentatively set for September.
