The CEO of Samgang S&C, who was prosecuted for violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act (Serious Accidents Punishment Act), was sentenced to imprisonment in the first trial and was detained in court.
The Criminal Division 1 of Tongyeong Branch, Changwon District Court (Presiding Judge Ryu Jun-woo) sentenced Mr. A, the CEO of Samgang S&C, who was indicted for violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, to two years in prison and detained him in court.
Earlier, Mr. A was prosecuted on charges of industrial accident causing death under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act in connection with an accident in which a worker in his 50s, Mr. B, fell to his death while repairing a ship railing at the Samgang S&C workplace located in Goseong-gun, Gyeongnam, on February 19, 2022.
The court stated, "Mr. A has been criminally punished seven times for violating the Occupational Safety and Health Act. After the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act, he prioritized saving time and costs, neglecting the safety of workers. Especially, despite three workers dying from industrial accidents within one year, he did not reflect on his mistakes and testified that the deaths were due to the victims' faults and that the company suffered losses, which calls for strict punishment," explaining the sentencing rationale.
During the trial, Mr. A denied the charges, claiming that Mr. B ignored controls and entered the work area, causing his death, and that he had taken safety measures. At this workplace, subcontractor workers also died during work in March and April 2021.
This sentence is the highest among the three cases so far where imprisonment was handed down for violating the Serious Accidents Punishment Act.
Previously, Mr. C, CEO of Korea Steel, was sentenced to one year in prison in April last year on charges of failing to fulfill safety obligations related to an accident in March 2022 at Korea Steel in Haman-gun, Gyeongnam, where a worker in his 60s was crushed by a 1.2-ton heat shield and died. This was the first case of a primary contractor CEO being detained after the enforcement of the Serious Accidents Punishment Act.
In April, Mr. D, CEO of Emtec Co., Ltd., was sentenced to two years in prison, the highest sentence, but avoided detention. Mr. D was indicted on charges related to an accident in July 2022 at a workplace in Yangsan-si, Gyeongnam, where a Nepali worker in his 40s died after his head was caught in a mold while cleaning inside a machine.
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