[Weekly Kyunghyang] “When did the first confirmed case emerge?”, “Which area did that person work in?”

At 7 p.m. on May 25, 2020, as COVID-19 began spreading, at Coupang’s Bucheon fresh logistics center in Gyeonggi Province. Workers who were in the middle of their shifts were gathered in one place, and questions poured out at the manager. The manager dodged answers, saying “I don’t know,” “I cannot say because it is personal information.” At that time, anxiety over COVID-19 was high. There were no treatments or vaccines yet, and it was deadly, with more than 11,000 people infected and 264 deaths (as of May 25, 2020). The manager tried to reassure them: “Those of you here are not primary contacts. I can assure you of that. We’ve fully traced the movements.” He said three confirmed cases had been found at the Bucheon logistics center and, effective immediately, the center would be closed, sending workers home.

Contrary to the manager’s confident assurances, starting the next day more than 10 additional cases were confirmed, and infections linked to the Coupang logistics center began to surge. Ultimately, at the Bucheon logistics center alone, 84 workers were infected, and including secondary transmissions among their families and others, 152 people were infected. One family member of an infected worker contracted COVID-19, remained unconscious in the hospital for years, and later passed away. Criticism arose that Coupang’s decision to continue normal operations even after learning on the morning of May 24 that two workers had tested positive had aggravated the situation.

This is the crux of the ‘Coupang logistics center COVID-19 cluster infection case’ (hereinafter, the cluster case). Infected workers filed a complaint against Coupang over the company’s inadequate response, but prosecutors delayed handling the case and issued a non-prosecution decision only at the end of 2024. Recently, the Coupang Countermeasures Committee asked the Standing Special Prosecutor, who is investigating the ‘Coupang daily workers’ unpaid severance case’ (hereinafter, the severance case), to additionally investigate this case. The committee suspects that, as with the severance case where outside interference in the investigation has been alleged, this casehandled during the same period by the same prosecutorial chain of commandmay also have faced outside interference. Even if there was no external pressure, they question whether this case was handled properly. To state the conclusion first, there reportedly were no internal disagreements within the prosecution while handling this case. The possibility of external interference appears low.

Even so, there is a reason to pay attention to this case. Coupang’s response mirrors the attitude seen in the personal information leak debacle. If the company fronted a ‘Chinese former employee’ in the data leak incident, here it sought to scapegoat the ‘first confirmed case inside the logistics center’ to place Coupang in the position of ‘victim.’ The way investigative authorities handled the case also resembled the severance case, with the scales tilted toward Coupang. Rather than rigorously examining whether Coupang fulfilled its safety and health obligations, prosecutors effectively sided with Coupang by arguing that COVID-19 is hard to view as an ‘industrial accident.’ The victims say that today’s Coupang was shaped by society’s failure to impose appropriate sanctions when corporate wrongdoing occurs. We revisited the case.

On June 1, 2020, a week after the Bucheon fresh logistics center was closed, an e-mail titled ‘Seoul’s new super-spreader’ was sent to more than 20 foreign correspondents. Beginning with “Information not covered by the media,” the e-mail claimed that due to this super-spreader’s carelessnesssuch as visiting a cafe and a supermarket by public transportationmore than 100 people, including her own son, had been infected with COVID-19. The account used to send the e-mail was “Concerned Seoul,” and it was sent through Proton Mail, an e-mail service that ensures anonymity. The super-spreader was Ms. A, a woman in her 40s who was the first to be infected with COVID-19 at Coupang’s Bucheon logistics center.

Coupang’s handling of the cluster case bears multiple similarities to the personal information leak scandal. According to materials disclosed by Mr. B, Coupang’s former Chief Privacy Officer (CPO), Coupang itself sent this mysterious e-mail. As additional cases continued to emerge even after the center closed, health authorities raised the possibility that Coupang had failed to observe basic quarantine rules. When criticism of Coupang mounted, the company allegedly sent an e-mail disguised as a tip to shift the target to the first confirmed case. This is akin to how, in the data leak incident, a Chinese former employee was spotlighted as the leaker before police had identified a suspect. By pushing a scapegoat to the fore, the company sought to deflect public censure.

At a time when cases were pouring in worldwide, the claim that Korea had a new super-spreader was unlikely to be compelling material for foreign media. So where did this idea come from? Based on Mr. B’s conversations with Coupang executives at the time, the intention of Coupang Inc. Chairman Kim Beom-seok appears to have influenced the move. In a messenger exchange on May 30 that year with a Coupang employee, Mr. B said, “Mr. C (Coupang’s head of international PR) will write the e-mail, and he agreed to provide the list of (foreign) reporters to send it to.” When the employee asked in essence, ‘I don’t understand how an e-mail we write in English will become Korean news,’ Mr. B replied, “I confirmed this while on a call with Beom (Coupang Inc. Chairman Kim Beom-seok) and Mr. C. Their idea is to have this reported by English-language outlets frequently cited by the Korean press so that Korean media will pick it up. Mr. C believes that once that happens, Korean netizens will amplify it and shift blame onto the patient, attacking her.”

Chairman Kim’s original idea seems to have been even more aggressive. In a subsequent exchange, Mr. B said, “As you know, yesterday Beom pushed the ‘negligent mother’ approach. Fortunately, Mr. C persuaded him not to attack a patient who is the mother of a child with a disability. So we can leave the son out nd omit that part.” They had even identified the first patient Ms. A’s family relationships to use as material for blame. Indeed, in materials prepared internally at Coupang and disclosed by Mr. B, a Facebook account and blog posts presumed to be Ms. A’s were included in a PowerPoint deck.

Mr. B also said they needed to ensure they did not “leave a trail” in case of a government investigation. In a subsequent exchange, he said, “Beom is extremely anxious about linking this matter to Coupang. We are in the middle of a national emergency, and the government may be displeased if we distort a ‘super-spreader.’ We cannot rule out the possibility that the government will trace this,” adding, “Beom wants the e-mail to be sent cautiously using multiple external layers outside Coupang so that it is untraceable.” Showing Mr. B a draft, Mr. C said, “I tried to write this e-mail as if it were sent by a citizen concerned about the situation.” In short, they were aware within Coupang that they were trying to escape a crisis by abnormal means.

On this point, Coupang said, “The dismissed executive making distorted assertions was a vice president who received tens of billions of won annually and was dismissed for employee abuse and retaliation against a whistleblower,” adding, “He is unilaterally making distorted claims out of dissatisfaction with the company’s legitimate dismissal.”

As in the personal information leak debacle, in this case too Coupang sought to minimize responsibility by emphasizing that it had ‘coordinated with the government.’ In the cluster case, even after two consecutive confirmed cases, Coupang halted work and disinfected only one floor of the seven-story building, then continued operations. However, Coupang workers said those whose hands were free moved to different work areas as needed, so it could hardly be seen as sufficient quarantine. In addition, the company selectively notified only some contacts about the confirmed cases and told them not to come to work, while it did not inform other workers that cases had occurred. Only after the third confirmed case did the company announce the infections and close the center30 hours after the first case. In response to criticism from investigative authorities and the courts that it reacted too slowly, Coupang argued that it had responded as swiftly as possible “in close coordination with the public health center.”

The problem is that investigative authorities accepted these claims as is. According to the non-prosecution decision written by the Bucheon District Office of the Incheon District Prosecutors’ Office in November 2024 in the cluster case, “At the time, the public health center required work stoppage upon the third patient, and Coupang took responsive measures,” concluding, “It is hard to see that the employer failed to immediately take necessary measures regarding safety and health.” The facts differ. In September 2021, while a related civil suit was underway, the Bucheon public health center submitted a response to the court stating, “Upon confirmation from a temporary worker who performed on-site disinfection at the time, there was no instance where the person said that the center had ‘coordinated’ with Coupang’s managers about resuming operations or that there was ‘no disagreement,’” adding, “Beyond on-site disinfection, we had no authority to express views on shutting down or resuming operations.” In other words, the public health center neither approved resuming operations upon the first confirmed case nor recommended a work stoppage upon the third. Even though the prosecution’s decision came after the public health center’s stance had been confirmed in the civil trial, prosecutors issued a non-prosecution decision for Coupang based on incorrect facts.

The way this case was handled by prosecutors is in many ways similar to the ‘severance case.’ As in the severance case, the Bucheon District Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor found Coupang responsible and referred the case to prosecutors with a recommendation to indict. Prosecutors questioned the complainants only once, delayed handling for more than two years, and in November 2024 concluded with non-prosecutionone day before the ruling in a civil suit filed by a worker infected with COVID-19 while working at Coupang. The chain of commandChief Prosecutor Moon Ji-seok, Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kim Dong-hee, and District Chief Prosecutor Eom Hee-junwas the same. In the subsequent civil trial, the court held, “Even though workers were in an environment where they could easily contract COVID-19, Coupang breached its duty to take appropriate measures to improve working conditions,” ordering Coupang to pay the victim 3 million won in damages.

Even if there was no outside interference, questions remain as to whether the case was handled appropriately. The Bucheon District Office of the Ministry of Employment and Labor referred the case for indictment not only for Coupang’s delayed response to COVID-19, but also for violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (hereinafter, the OSH Act) for failing to provide protective gear such as cold-weather clothing and for failing to provide rest breaks. The Bucheon fresh logistics center handles fresh food deliveries, and workers were stationed in refrigerated and frozen warehouses. Under the law, for workers in refrigerated and frozen warehouses, employers must provide personal cold-weather clothing, ensure that workers can immediately change if workwear becomes wet to prevent frostbite, and provide appropriate rest breaks.

But the Coupang logistics center did not comply. Mr. D, who worked at the Bucheon center at the time and later tested positive for COVID-19, said, “There were some cold-weather clothes and safety shoes, but not enough for the number of workers. Besides, they were communal items for everyone and were dirty because they were not laundered. So people wore their own padded jackets or thick clothes to work.” Under such circumstances, even if workwear got wet, there were no proper spare clothes to change into. Regarding rest breaks, he said, “Apart from exactly one hour for meals, there were no separate rest breaks. For bathroom visits, you had to say your name, write down the time you left, and then record the minute you returned.”

Nevertheless, prosecutors concluded, “In a logistics center with many short-term daily workers, it is realistically difficult to expect that all workers will be provided with personally owned protective gear,” and judged, “Workwear includes workers’ own clothes that they voluntarily wear while working, and if the employer installed a changing room and stocked spare protecive gear, that can be viewed as a measure allowing workers to change wet workwear.” Even though more spare protective gear should have been stocked and properly laundered and managed precisely because many daily hires were used, the prosecutors construed Coupang’s employment modelrelying on daily workersas a reason the company could not help but violate the law. The interpretation that workers’ ‘personal clothes’ are included in ‘workwear’ is also arbitrary.

On rest breaks, prosecutors also stated, “If there was a principle of providing rest to freezer-warehouse workers, even if shift managers did not operate the breaks precisely, it is hard to see criminal intent on the part of the suspects,” adding, “According to the complainants’ statements, they were reprimanded if their rest or bathroom use was prolonged, but those statements alone suggest that some degree of rest was possible.”

The decisive reason prosecutors issued a non-prosecution decision was that they did not regard COVID-19 as an ‘industrial accident’ under the OSH Act. In this case, prosecutors defined ‘industrial accident’ as a risk arising from dangerous equipment or work methods in the workplacei.e., problems inside the workplaceand asserted that viral infection does not fall under that category. Not only at Coupang’s logistics centers but also elsewhere, workers who contracted COVID-19 on the job have been recognized for occupational disease and received medical benefits under the industrial accident compensation insurance scheme. Prosecutors, however, viewed the meaning of ‘industrial accident’ under the Industrial Accident Compensation Insurance Act as distinct from ‘industrial accident’ under the OSH Act.

This interpretation also clashes with how public institutions understood it at the time. The Korea Occupational Safety and Health Research Institute’s 2020 issue report, ‘A review of COVID-19 as a social disaster and an industrial accident,’ states, “COVID-19 should be considered a disease under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the state and employers have a duty to prevent the disease within the relevant realm and scope where labor is provided.” In other words, COVID-19 was also defined as an industrial accident under the OSH Act.

Moreover, the reason the cluster occurred at the Coupang logistics center cannot be separated from Coupang’s working methods. Mr. D said, “At the packing station, when it was busy, two to three people would squeeze into a space meant for one and work shoulder to shoulder. If you bent over to pull out a box, your backside would inevitably touch the person behind you. If someone’s hands were free, they would send a worker from the second floor to the fourth floor, and from the fourth floor to the second.” In short, the workflow made distancing difficult and close contact unavoidable, enabling the virus to spread rapidly.

Attorney Jeong Byeong-min, who represented Coupang’s workers in the criminal matter and the civil suit, said, “The OSH Act is a law to prevent industrial accidents, and it asks whether the employer fulfilled safety and health obligations to prevent such accidents. At the time, COVID-19 was a legally designated Class 1 infectious disease with no treatment method, so the duty to take safety and health measures should have been construed more strictly. There is no basis to say COVID-19 is not an industrial accident, nor any reason to interpret the scope so narrowly. At a minimum, if there were interpretive doubts, the issue should have been tested legally in court.”