By Hamza Faisal

SEOUL — South Korea's Supreme Court on Tuesday finalized a four-year prison sentence for Park Soon-kwan, the chief executive of lithium battery maker Aricell, over the devastating 2024 factory fire that killed 23 workers — a landmark ruling that sets, for the first time, the scope of a CEO's personal safety liability under the country's Serious Accidents Punishment Act.

The Supreme Court's First Division, presided over by Justice Chun Dae-yup, dismissed appeals from both prosecutors and the defense, affirming the appellate court's sentence. Park was convicted of violating the Act by failing to fulfill his duty to secure workplace safety, including not inspecting harmful and hazardous factors and not preparing a manual to guard against serious accidents.

From 15 years to four

A district court had originally sentenced Park to 15 years in prison — the heaviest sentence handed down under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act since it took effect in 2022. But the appeals court slashed the term to four years, clearing Park and his son of a key charge that they failed to install an emergency exit on the factory's second floor. The appeals court noted that safety regulations do not specifically require exits on every floor, and it also weighed the company's settlements with the victims' bereaved families.

The Supreme Court's ruling makes those reductions final. It also finalized a seven-year prison term for Park's son, who served as the company's chief operating officer and managing director, after he too had initially been sentenced to 15 years. Two other Aricell executives received suspended sentences — 18 months with three years' probation — and the corporate entity was fined 800 million won, roughly $602,000.

What happened on June 24, 2024

At about 10:31 a.m. on June 24, 2024, a fire broke out at Aricell's lithium battery plant in Seosin-myeon, Hwaseong, about 45 kilometers south of Seoul. Lithium batteries exploded in a chain reaction, triggering a massive blaze that killed 23 people — five South Koreans, 17 Chinese nationals, and one Laotian national — and injured nine others. It remains one of the deadliest industrial accidents in the country's recent history.

Prosecutors argued that Park, as the person with overall responsibility for the business, had neglected his obligation to identify and control dangerous factors and to prepare for a serious accident. The court agreed that the management head bears the safety duty under the Act, even as it refined how far that duty reaches.

A first-of-its-kind precedent

Crucially, the Supreme Court used the case to set out — for the first time — the standards for determining liability for a person with overall responsibility for a business and a person in charge of safety and health affairs under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act. The court held that CEO Park, as the management head overseeing Aricell's business, bore the duty to secure safety and health, while ruling that his son, although responsible for safety under the Industrial Safety and Health Act, did not qualify as the person in charge of safety and health affairs under the Serious Accidents Punishment Act itself.

The Act, enacted in 2022, punishes business owners or CEOs with a minimum of one year in prison or fines of up to 1 billion won for fatal industrial accidents. The ruling is likely to shape how future corporate safety cases are prosecuted — and how boards and executives in South Korea's battery and semiconductor industries document their safety systems.

The case underscores South Korea's continuing effort to hold corporate leaders personally accountable when negligence turns deadly.

By Hamza Faisal