The Supreme Court on the 20th upheld a four-year prison term for Park Soon-kwan, chief executive of battery maker Aricell, over a 2024 factory fire that killed 23 workers.
The top court's first panel, presided over by Justice Chun Dae-yup, finalized the appellate ruling that sentenced Park to four years in prison on charges including violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The court also finalized a seven-year prison term and a 1 million won fine for his son, Park Joong-eon, who headed Aricell's general management division, along with an 800 million won fine imposed on the company.
The fire broke out on June 24, 2024, at Aricell's plant in Seosin-myeon, Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, killing 23 workers and injuring nine. Park was indicted and detained on charges of failing to meet safety and health obligations, including not establishing procedures to identify and address hazards and risks and not preparing a manual for responding to serious industrial accidents. His son was indicted on charges of breaching his professional duty of care by failing to install heat detectors capable of sensing battery overheating and failing to properly conduct worker safety training and fire drills.
The trial court sentenced Park to 15 years in prison, the heaviest term handed down since the Serious Accidents Punishment Act took effect in 2022. It found him guilty, ruling that he qualified as a business manager subject to punishment under the law. His son, who was also indicted on charges including violating the Occupational Safety and Health Act, received 15 years in prison and a 1 million won fine.
The appellate court sharply reduced Park's sentence to four years. It did not recognize violations of the Occupational Safety and Health Act concerning the installation of emergency exits and the maintenance of emergency passageways, finding that there was no obligation to install a separate emergency exit on the second floor as long as one existed on the first floor. His son's term was reduced to seven years.
The Supreme Court left the appellate ruling intact. It held that Park, as the executive with overall responsibility for the business, bore the duties and liability of a business manager under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. Even when a separate officer is designated to oversee safety and health affairs, the court said, the executive with overall responsibility still bears those duties and liability in areas where he exercises final decision-making authority. The court found that Park had breached his obligation to ensure safety and health, and that there was a substantial causal link between that breach and the workers' deaths.
The court also ruled that establishing risk assessment procedures under the Occupational Safety and Health Act does not by itself amount to fulfilling the obligation under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act to set up procedures for identifying and addressing hazards and risks. Aricell had rules on risk assessment, the court found, but they did not specifically reflect the characteristics of a lithium battery manufacturing site, and no risk assessment had been carried out since 2023.
The son was found to have committed professional negligence as the officer responsible for safety and health management by failing to take safety measures against the risk of battery explosions and by neglecting worker safety training and fire drills. He was also found guilty of charges including swapping test samples during quality inspections of batteries supplied to the military and defrauding the Defense Acquisition Program Administration of about 4.5 billion won.
The Supreme Court did accept the appellate court's findings that rejected liability for the deaths based on violations of emergency exit requirements under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, as well as professional negligence charges against an employee in the production management team. It also upheld the acquittal on charges of covering up past industrial accidents, agreeing that the seized evidence lacked an objective connection to the alleged offenses specified in the search warrant and therefore could not be admitted.