Rectification! South Korean e-commerce Coupang will revise its unfair terms for sellers

According to Chosun Ilbo, the Korea Fair Trade Commission ( KFTC ) recently announced its decision to correct the unfair terms signed by Coupang with consumers, online sellers and suppliers .

In response, Coupang has also decided to take the initiative to amend some of the unfair terms pointed out by the KFTC. It is reported that Coupang will complete the system improvement work according to the stipulated terms and apply the new terms from September.

Coupang has a system called " Item Winner " that is unique to Coupang . When several companies sell the same product, the system awards the "winner" status to the company with the lowest selling price . The cheapest and best-selling seller will be publicly listed as a representative on the product 's introduction page .

In order to buy the same product from other sellers, consumers have to click separately on “See other sellers.” In this case , the seller offering the best conditions can take almost all the sales.

In order to operate the Item Winner system, Coupang allows the use of product photos of other sellers as representative photos of Item Winner. However, Coupang stipulates that the intellectual property rights of works created using the content of other sellers also belong to Coupang.

The KFTC will consider that these contents are " inappropriate clauses that are disadvantageous to customers " under treaty law , and the copyright of product images cannot be transferred to a third party without the individual's consent .

Therefore , the KFTC clearly stated that the copyright or ownership of the content provided by the seller will not be transferred to Coupang. In addition, the Item Winner system can only use the content provided by the seller himself.

At the same time, the KFTC also revised the terms that allowed Coupang to evade legal responsibility.

Coupang previously included an additional exemption clause in its consumer terms, stipulating that "all risks and responsibilities shall be borne by the relevant parties." The terms signed with sellers also stipulate that if a dispute arises regarding cultural information intellectual property rights, the seller will bear the costs and Coupang will be exempted from liability.

In addition, Coupang is also undergoing a review by the KFTC on terms such as requiring sellers to set a minimum price for their products.

South Korea

Coupang

Seller