On Monday, Coupang president and CEO Kim Bom skipped the hottest business event of the week ― the National Assembly’s annual audit into governmental and corporate affairs.

His fellow social commerce leaders, such as WeMakePrice CEO Park Eun-sang and Ticket Monster CEO Daniel Shin, showed up to face questioning by lawmakers about alleged unfair business practices by their companies. Other industry bigwigs, such as CEOs of Samsung, SK, E-Land and Lotte affiliates and many others were also present, while Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin is scheduled to show up on Thursday.

Coupang’s head of policy office Park Dae-jun replaced Kim and expressed his company’s willingness to quell public antipathy and vowed improvements.

However, some were clearly unimpressed by Kim’s absence. “The parliamentary hearing is an important occasion, especially this year when all eyes are on whether businessmen have been operating lawfully and fairly, and whether they are communicating with the public sincerely. It would have been better if Kim showed up,” an industry insider said.

Coupang explained that the CEO suffered a severe injury some time ago while playing basketball. “Kim damaged his Achilles’ tendon. He is wearing a gigantic cast and has to wear shorts instead of long trousers,” a Coupang spokesman said.

“We thought it would be inappropriate for a person to show up at the parliamentary hearing in shorts. We have gained approval from both ruling and opposition parties for the proxy attendance,” he added.

But had Kim showed up, he would likely have faced several thorny questions.

As much as his business thrived in a short period of time ― Coupang was established on Aug. 10, 2010, with seven staff members and grew into a large e-commerce organizer with more than 3,000 workers as of September ― his company has been involved in a slew of allegations over unfair business practices.

The company’s signature “Rocket Delivery” program ― which gives customers free delivery within 24 hours if they buy items worth more than 9,800 won ― awaits review from the Ministry of Governmental Legislation. Local delivery operators have filed complaints, arguing that the service is illegal because Coupang has been running its own delivery system with nonregistered commercial freight vans.

The company is also accused of coercing its vendors to work exclusively with Coupang.

These allegations may have hurt the reputation of Kim and his company, which has long planned for an initial public offering.

Kim ― who was born in 1978 and emigrated to the U.S. at the age of 7, studied at Harvard and started his career as a junior associate of Boston Consulting Group ― has always been ambitious.

He ventured into the entrepreneurial world while at Harvard by launching a free magazine, “Current,” which was later sold to Newsweek. He later established Forward Ventures LLC, which established Coupang in Korea as a deal-of-the-day service provider heavily inspired by U.S. pioneer Groupon.

Kim soon understood that the key to “social commerce” ― the Korean term of deal-of-the-day service ― was to secure a good delivery system. He infused a variety of IT factors into the service and hired about 1,000 regular-contracted delivery staff dubbed “Coupang men,” while establishing large logistics hub and likened his company to Amazon.

Coupang’s sales rose to 348.5 billion won as of 2014. A more promising future was projected when Forward Ventures attracted astronomical investments ― starting with U.S.-based Sequoia Capital’s $100 million, $300 million from Blackrock in 2014, and finally $1 billion from Japan’s SoftBank earlier this year. Softbank led by Masayoshi Son valued Coupang at 5.5 trillion won.

Investors appreciated the fact that Coupang has established a rather “direct commerce,” overlooking merchandizing, sales and delivery, completing its online-to-offline services rather than simply curating and merchandizing. But most of all, it focused on the potential.

“About 75-80 percent of deals are made through mobile phones. It has 25 million members, which is about half of smartphone users in the country. The company is also passionate about R&D, running research centers in Silicon Valley, Shanghai and Seattle. All are very promising,” a SoftBank official was quoted as saying to local media.

Now, Kim is set to move Coupang in a new direction by launching an open market service later this month. The “Market Place” is expected to fuel the overall e-commerce industry, currently dominated by eBay Korea, SK and others.

“Kim comes to work, but he needs extreme care,” the Coupang spokesman said, denying claims that the CEO tried to evade the grilling, stressing that he was a very hands-on manager in the company.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)