The focus of major disaster trials is shifting from post-accident explanations to pre-accident records. This is because the new sentencing guidelines announced by the Supreme Court’s Sentencing Commission on the 22nd of last month identified factors verifiable through records—such as compliance with hazard reports, responses to corrective orders, and details of safety budget execution—as aggravating factors. With the minimum sentence now higher than before, voices within the construction industry are calling for a swift review of their response systems.
In this news segment, we will summarize the content of the new sentencing guidelines, the trend of rulings to date, the preparation strategies identified by the industry, and how these changes align with the broader regulatory trends that have continued throughout the year.
The new sentencing guidelines set the recommended base sentence for fatal serious industrial accidents resulting in the death of a worker at 1 year and 6 months to 4 years in prison. If aggravating factors are present, the sentence ranges from 3 to 10 years; if special aggravating factors accumulate, the maximum sentence rises to 15 years. Compared to the previous average sentence of approximately 1 year and 2 months, this represents an increase starting from the lower end of the range.
What is noteworthy is the nature of the aggravating factors. These include failure to submit risk reports, repeated failure to comply with corrective orders, cuts or misappropriation of safety budgets, subcontracting that does not reflect minimum safety costs, and unreasonable construction schedules—most of which are items verified through documents and records. This means there is now greater scope for courts to scrutinize matters extending beyond on-site management to include headquarters’ budget allocation, subcontracting, and process management.
However, the timing of the final confirmation and implementation still requires further verification.
The trend in court rulings is predominantly toward suspended sentences. Of the 85 management executives from 81 workplaces whose cases were finalized from the law’s implementation in 2022 through the first half of this year, 3 (3.5%) received actual prison terms, while 77 (90.6%) received suspended sentences.
Nevertheless, a shift is becoming apparent. In a case involving a crane collapse, a representative was sentenced to one year and four months in prison at the first-instance trial (currently under appeal); conversely, in a quarry case, the first-instance court acquitted the defendant, ruling that the group chairman could not be considered a management executive. This is the context in which the question of whether an individual qualifies as a management official and whether they fulfilled their duties has emerged as a key issue in these trials.
The structure of legal application is also a point of contention. In one serious disaster case, the Supreme Court ruled that violations of the Act on the Punishment of Serious Disasters, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and negligent homicide in the course of duty constituted “imaginary concurrence,” meaning they amounted to multiple offenses. Since a conviction for one offense can have a “double jeopardy” effect on other charges, experts point out the need to design a defense strategy with experts from the very beginning of the investigation.
Records of Compliance: It has been found that 92.6% of workplaces found guilty to date violated their obligation to inspect hazardous and dangerous factors. Documenting risk assessments, inspections, and corrective actions is essential.
Risk reporting system: Since failure to report risks is an aggravating factor, procedures are needed to track the process from receipt of a report through corrective action to the notification of results.
Protection of the safety budget: Since reducing the budget or diverting funds to other purposes can lead to harsher penalties, the history of budget allocation, execution, and changes must be managed at the corporate headquarters level; for unavoidable cuts, the reasons and alternative measures must be documented.
Subcontracting and Schedule Design: Whether the minimum safety costs are reflected in subcontract unit prices and whether unreasonable deadlines were imposed can influence sentencing.
Clarification of Management Officials’ Status and Authority: The decision-making structure and scope of delegated authority must be clearly documented; in the event of an accident, measures must be in place to preserve the accident site, investigate the cause, implement measures to prevent recurrence, and make efforts to compensate for damages. The bereaved families’ decision not to seek punishment or the actual compensation for damages are reflected as mitigating factors.
When viewed within the context of this year’s trends, the direction of these sentencing guidelines becomes clearer.
On the administrative inspection front, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries has increased inspections of projects subject to special management from once to twice a year and switched to comprehensive inspections, while the Korea Rural Community Corporation has expanded its fleet of unannounced inspection patrol vehicles from one to nine. Regarding administrative sanctions, starting next January, administrative fines will be imposed for violations of mandatory risk assessments at construction sites with project values of 5 billion won or more; worker participation, sharing of results, and record-keeping and preservation are each treated as separate items. The amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act, which passed the Cabinet meeting this month, mandates the imposition of a penalty of up to 5% of operating profit if three or more deaths occur within a year—provided that the employer has violated their legal obligations.
Although the measures—inspection intervals, administrative fines, penalties, and even criminal sentences—vary, they all boil down to the same question: Have the required measures been implemented, and can this be verified?
This is where Digital Presso draws attention. A closer look at the list of aggravating factors reveals that records generated on-site are intermingled with those created at headquarters. Risk assessments, inspections, and corrective actions are documented in on-site records, while safety budget allocations and decisions on subcontracting rates and project timelines are recorded separately in headquarters approval documents. This is why it is difficult to weave these two sets of records into a single timeline after an accident occurs.
Digitalpresso’s B2B comprehensive construction platform, RenameDP, is designed to bridge this gap. It provides risk assessments and TBM (pre-work safety briefing) documents tailored to the job site and even handles electronic signatures from attendees within the app, ensuring that compliance is recorded on the same day. Additionally, risk reports posted in site-specific chat rooms are linked to the electronic approval process, so the entire history—from receipt to action and response—is stored together. “Failure to report hazards”—which sentencing guidelines cite as an aggravating factor—is precisely where the line is drawn.
Of course, the history of safety budget allocation and execution falls under the purview of accounting and management systems, and sentencing decisions are the court’s responsibility. The platform cannot guarantee outcomes. However, there is a clear difference between sites that have consistently accumulated supporting documentation and those that scramble to gather evidence after an accident.
The words of an industry insider sum up this change: As the courts increasingly assess compliance with safety obligations based on documentation and budget execution records, “responding only after an accident occurs is already too late; routine records and systems become the very means of defense.”
This year, the construction safety system has moved toward increasing inspections and imposing stricter penalties, and with these sentencing guidelines, that trend has now reached the courts. The remaining question is whether to simply create more records or to establish a system where records are generated automatically.
The Korea Specialized Construction News, “Sentencing for Serious Accidents: ‘Records of Pre-Accident Compliance’ Make the Difference,” 2026 — https://www.koscaj.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=327070
Supreme Court Sentencing Commission Announces Sentencing Guidelines for Serious Accidents (cited in the article)
The Korea Economic Daily, “Risk Assessment Fines Imminent… Small and Medium-Sized Construction Firms Face an Urgent Crisis,” 2026 — https://www.dnews.co.kr/uhtml/view.jsp?idxno=202610141120441340522
The Korea Economic Daily, “Fines of Up to 5% of Operating Profit for Companies with 3 or More Annual Work-Related Fatalities… Approved by the Cabinet,” 2026 — https://www.dnews.co.kr/uhtml/view.jsp?idxno=202610201417214590329
The Korea Specialized Construction News, “Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries to Conduct Intensive Inspections of 46 Marine and Fisheries Construction Sites… Twice a Year,” 2026 — https://www.koscaj.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=326701
This content was produced by Digital Presso Co., Ltd. and references the above sources. Please refer to the original text for further details.
