Allied Intelligence — 2026-07-05

Korean NIS Rejects US House Report Alleging Intelligence Service Directed Coupang Investigation

BLUFSeoul's coordinated two-ministry rebuttal locks both governments into incompatible narratives that will constrain flexibility in pending bilateral digital-trade negotiations.

The National Intelligence Service on Thursday rejected a US House Judiciary Committee report alleging it directed Coupang's data-breach investigation, calling the claim a "clear falsehood" and denying any instruction, order, or coercion to the company 1. The committee's 35-page report, released Wednesday and titled "Closed for Competition," accused Korean authorities of discriminatory treatment of Coupang and other US firms 23. NIS said its involvement was limited to information-sharing consultations under Article 4 of the NIS Act, and that Coupang itself requested both the cybersecurity-firm referral and transport support for IT equipment recovered from a fugitive leaker in China. NIS added it had no knowledge the equipment existed until Coupang's request arrived through another government agency, and that it assisted only because the devices were believed to hold personal data on roughly 33 million South Koreans 13. South Korea's Foreign Ministry separately called the report "one-sided," with spokesperson Park Il saying Coupang-related investigations have proceeded lawfully 2. NIS separately disclosed it had asked the National Assembly on December 30 to file a perjury complaint against Coupang's then-interim chief executive, Harold Rogers, over his testimony that the agency directed the investigation 3.

Analysis
The dueling accounts sharpen a Korea-US friction point that outlasts the data-breach episode, since the committee's discriminatory-treatment framing feeds directly into ongoing negotiations over bilateral digital-trade commitments that Seoul's Foreign Ministry invoked in its rebuttal. NIS's point-by-point denial, keyed to the same claims Coupang's chief executive made under oath, keeps alive the National Assembly's perjury referral against him and raises the political cost of Washington citing an NIS-directed narrative in future trade or oversight proceedings. Seoul's coordinated NIS-Foreign Ministry response indicates the government treats the report as a diplomatic liability warranting unified pushback. Sourcing rests solely on NIS's own statement, with other outlets offering derivative amplification rather than independent reporting, though Kyunghyang Shinmun's citation of an alleged presidential-office instruction to coordinate closely with NIS on the leaker's equipment points toward involvement beyond the narrowly scoped consultation NIS describes.

5 sources

Korea Spy Agency Rejects US House Coupang Report as Distorted - Seoul Economic Daily
Korea expresses regret over US House committee's 'lopsided' Coupang report - The Korea Times
NIS Says Claims About Coupang in US House Report are Clearly False - Herald Economy
NIS Disputes US House Coupang Report, Says 'Facts Misrepresented,' Expresses Regret toward Coupang - Kyunghyang Shinmun
美하원 법사위 '쿠팡 보고서'에 대한 국정원 입장 (NIS Position on the US House Judiciary Committee's 'Coupang Report') - National Intelligence Service (Republic of Korea) — official press release