Reports on Friday said the Incheon District Court granted Samsung Biologics' application for indirect compulsion against the union. The ruling reinforces an earlier injunction that bars union leaders from directing members on certain essential production lines to stop work or from circulating related instructions.
The court had initially declined to attach financial penalties to the March injunction after the union pledged to abide by it. That pledge unraveled on April 27, when union leadership distributed a "strike guidance procedure" to members and roughly 300 employees assigned to court-restricted processes joined the subsequent walkout, prompting the company to refile.
Samsung Biologics had sought 100 million won per violation, but the court awarded a fifth of that amount. "The union must not, during the period of industrial action based on the March 29, 2026 strike vote, instruct members to halt court-designated processes or distribute related guidelines," the bench said in its order.
Industry observers said the decision underscores the unique vulnerability of biologic drug manufacturing, where even brief stoppages at fermentation or purification stages can spoil raw materials and finished products worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
The company is separately appealing to expand the injunction's scope to cover its entire production footprint.
The Samsung Biologics dispute stands apart from the wage standoff at affiliate Samsung Electronics, where its union on Wednesday suspended an 18-day general strike that had been scheduled to begin Thursday and run through June 7.
Union members at Samsung Electronics will vote on the tentative wage agreement from Friday through May 27, while Samsung Biologics remains locked in litigation over the scope and enforcement of its own injunction.
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