Daeryun Law Firm sues the police, CEO Park Dae-jun, over the 'Coupang incident'... Review of U.S. class action lawsuit

Suspicion of violation of the Personal Information Protection Act and breach of duty... Scheduled to be accepted at Songpa, Seoul
“Intentional negligence is enough… Expect a thorough investigation of the truth and punishment of those responsible.”

Daeryun Law Firm is taking legal action against Coupang and its CEO on the 5th in relation to Coupang's large-scale personal information leak.

Daeryun announced that at 2 p.m. on the same day, it plans to file a complaint with the Songpa Police Station in Seoul against Coupang CEO Park Dae-joon and the company's personal information certification staff and managers on charges of violating the Personal Information Protection Act and breach of duty.

Daeryun stated in the complaint, "As the managers and managers in charge of personal information processing, they neglected their obligations to take safety measures to prevent information leakage," and added, "The person in charge leaked personal information without returning the authentication key even after leaving the company."

It was also stated that "the managers also did not take any action whatsoever, such as not collecting the authentication key of the employee who left the company or replacing the existing authentication key."

In a statement, Daeryun pointed out that “Under criminal law, intent to fail is sufficient for intent to fail,” and that “managers, including CEO Park, allowed unauthorized access to the server by former employees in order to reduce the cost of replacing authentication keys and gain the convenience of continuing to use existing authentication keys.”

He continued, “It is judged that there was an internal intention to tolerate the risk of information leakage even when fully aware of it, such as giving up on quick response even when the leak was recognized.”

In addition, "Coupang claimed that the unauthorized access occurred on November 6th, but that it was aware of it on the 18th," he said. "However, if unauthorized access had occurred, an abnormal access signal would have been immediately transmitted to Coupang, but it is difficult to understand that it was not aware of it."

At the same time, he emphasized, “There is a need to investigate the internal reports made at the time and the instructions given by the decision makers.”

Regarding the charge of breach of trust, Daeryun explained, "Not only are Coupang users suffering damages such as invasion of privacy, but Coupang Corporation also suffered significant property damage, such as increased security measure costs and the possibility of fines being imposed." He added, "It satisfies the requirement of 'incurring property damage due to a violation of duty.'"

Gye-jun Son, head of Daeryun's corporate legal group, said, "Customers believed that Coupang would safely protect their personal information with the latest technology, but in reality, Coupang betrayed their trust by not even managing basic authentication keys. We hope that this complaint will lead to a thorough investigation of the truth and punishment of those responsible."

Daeryun is also considering a class action lawsuit against Coupang's headquarters in conjunction with SJKP LLP, a local corporation in New York. Unlike Korea, the plan is to obtain actual damage relief through the U.S. courts, which have a punitive damages system.

Reporter Jeong Yun-mi (younme@news1.kr)

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