Court Orders Samsung Heavy Industries to Pay Compensation to Employee Subjected to Illegal Surveillance

[Asia Economy Reporter Cho Sung-pil] Former and current workers of Samsung Heavy Industries recently won a lawsuit claiming mental damages caused by illegal surveillance conducted by the company.

According to the legal community on the 14th, Judge Cho Gyu-seol of the Civil Division 35 at the Seoul Central District Court ruled on the 14th of last month in favor of some of the 27 former and current Samsung Heavy Industries employees, including Mr. Son, who filed a damages claim lawsuit against the company and former Samsung Electronics Vice President Kang Kyung-hoon along with other former executives of the now-defunct Future Strategy Office. The court ordered the defendants to pay each plaintiff between 1 million and 1.5 million KRW. The court noted, "It is clear that the plaintiffs suffered mental distress due to the defendants' illegal actions."

Previously, Samsung Heavy Industries was suspected of providing personal information of employees who were members of or likely to join the labor union to Samsung Electronics' Future Strategy Office without their consent in 2010. It was also investigated that Samsung Heavy Industries identified employees who donated to organizations labeled as so-called 'subversive groups' by the management by checking their year-end tax settlement details and provided this information to the Future Strategy Office. Most of these large-scale illegal surveillance and union disruption attempts targeting affiliate labor union members by Samsung were recognized as guilty in criminal trials. Former Vice President Kang, who oversaw labor affairs for Samsung Group at the Future Strategy Office, was also sentenced to prison by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.