A ruling by the appellate court determined that Celltrion, a large domestic pharmaceutical company, is not obligated to directly employ employees of subcontractors. Legal representation for Celltrion was provided by Yoon & Yang LLC.
The Incheon 2nd Civil Division of the Seoul High Court (presiding judge Shin Jong-oh) on May 1 canceled the first-instance ruling that had accepted the claims of the plaintiffs, employees of the stock company Freezone, who claimed illegal dispatch against Celltrion, and dismissed the plaintiffs' claims by upholding Celltrion's appeal.
Celltrion contracted Freezone to clean and disinfect the walls and floors of the clean room in its biopharmaceutical production facility after its employees' working hours. The plaintiffs, who performed cleaning and disinfection duties under Freezone, filed a lawsuit in 2019, claiming that Celltrion should directly employ them.
Earlier, in 2023, the Incheon District Court ruled in the first instance that the detailed points in Celltrion's standard operating procedures (SOP), the fact that individual tasks were directed by Celltrion, and the close linkage between the cleaning and disinfection work and Celltrion's pharmaceutical production operations indicated that Celltrion was effectively utilizing the plaintiffs as if they were dispatched.
The appellate court, represented by Yoon & Yang LLC, argued that compliance with the SOP is merely part of the contract based on the manufacturing quality control standards (GMP) required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and others, that Celltrion only provided objective information for emergency cleaning and disinfection, that Celltrion's pharmaceutical production work and Freezone's cleaning and disinfection tasks are clearly separated, and that Celltrion had no involvement in the hiring of Freezone employees, asserting that Freezone is an independent enterprise. The appellate court accepted all of these arguments.
Yang Si-hoon, a lawyer from Yoon & Yang LLC who led Celltrion's legal representation in the appellate court, noted, "Illegal dispatch cases have rarely been raised in the pharmaceutical and bio sectors, primarily occurring in large-scale process industries such as automotive, steel, tires, and cement," adding, "The fact that the first-instance ruling acknowledged illegal dispatch for employees of an in-house partner performing essential nighttime cleaning duties in the pharmaceutical and bio sectors and overturned it is significant."