A court sentenced Kaher Kazem, a former CEO of GM Korea Co., to a suspended prison term today on charges of illegally hiring approximately 1,700 manufacturing temporary workers, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The former CEO was accused, along with other GM executives, of hiring 1,719 workers dispatched from 24 outsourcing companies to work at the carmaker's factories in Incheon, Changwon and Gunsan in South Korea from September 2017 to December 2021. The dispatched, or temporary workers, were made to work at the factories' main production lines involving automotive body assembly and painting, where the hiring of dispatched workers is banned under the relevant labour law aimed at protecting temporary agency workers.

Kazem, along with four other executives were first indicted in 2020. GM Authority reports that these partner suppliers and GM Korea allegedly created a contract to hire the workers, but did so without first seeking permission from the Korean Minister of Employment and Labour. GM Korea corporation as a whole on the same charges.

The Incheon District Court handed out an eight-month prison term, suspended for two years, for Kazem while sentencing GM Korea to a fine of KRW 30 million (USD 24,086), ending two years of court proceedings on the case.

GM Korea's labour union of temporary workers immediately denounced the ruling, saying the suspended sentence is tantamount to giving him ‘an indulgence’.