Korean Workplace Sexual Harassment under the Korean Labor Standards Act

The Supreme Court of Korea, in May of 2025, ruled on a pivotal case concerning the law of Korean workplace sexual harassment. Please note that companies in Korea have, also, been sued by alleged victims of workplace sexual harassment in Korea for, among other things, lack of supervision of management employment, not putting adequate protocols and rules in place, and otherwise not providing a hostile-free workplace.

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Dismissal for Korean Workplace
Sexual Harassment

Facts

1. Plaintiff is a senior-level employee of a large corporation in Korea.
2. Lower courts found that Plaintiff engaged regularly in romantic advances towards a more junior employee via the internal messenger system of the company and KakaoTalk.
3. Lower courts found that Plaintiff sent emails implying that Plaintiff was suicidal and issued improper and peculiar work-related orders.
4. The alleged victim submitted a grievance to the employer and the employer dismissed the Plaintiff.
5. The Plaintiff challenged the dismissal in a Korean court and the Supreme Court upheld the

Supreme Court Holding on Dismissal for Korean Workplace Sexual Harassment

In Supreme Court Decision 2024Da219209, May 9, 2024 (Appellate Dismissal Upheld) the court ruled that:

“The Plaintiff continuously engaged in persistent and obsessive romantic advances over an extended period and appeared to link these actions to work-related matters. Given that both the victim and the Plaintiff were employed at the same company, it appears that the only way for the victim to maintain a peaceful working relationship with the Plaintiff was to accept the romantic advances. In light of sound social norms and workplace practices, Plaintiff’s conduct objectively constitutes behavior that would cause sexual humiliation or repulsion to an average person in the victim’s position. It also exceeds the proper bounds of work conduct and causes psychological distress or deteriorates the work environment.”

The court therefore held that the Plaintiff’s actions constituted workplace harassment prohibited under Article 76-2 of the Korean Labor Standards Act, and upheld the legality of the dismissal.

Sean Hayes is the first non-Korean attorney to have worked for the Korean court system (Constitutional Court of Korea) and one of the first non-Koreans to be a regular member of a Korean law faculty. Sean is ranked, for Korea, as one of the only non-Korean lawyers as a Top Attorney by AsiaLaw, and IPG Legal is consistently ranked Top Dispute Resolution Law Firm for our litigation services.

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