The Samsung SDI battery factory endangered its workers, refused fire safety inspectors

After a lengthy freedom-of-information lawsuit, we were able to reveal why the Pest County Government Office fined Samsung’s factory in Göd. According to the documents we obtained through the lawsuit, Samsung SDI Zrt. was fined for labor-law violations and for endangering its employees. Based on the full set of documents, Samsung SDI Zrt. was fined 61 times between 2018 and 2025, with fines totaling 405 million HUFs (1.14 million EUR).

“On behalf of and by order of the director of the Pest County Government Office—in compliance with the obligation set out in the Budapest Metropolitan Court’s judgment No. 117.Pf.632.061/2026/6—I am enclosing the requested decisions,” reads the government office’s letter dated June 30, finally bringing an end to our freedom-of-information lawsuit, which had been ongoing since January.

As we reported earlier this year, we filed a lawsuit seeking access to documents concerning the fines imposed on the battery factory in Göd over the previous two and a half years. The Pest County Government Office had refused to release the documents to us, even though the National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (NAIH) had also ordered the office to disclose the information.

During the proceedings, the court ruled in our favor at first instance and then on appeal, ordering the government office to provide the requested documents. The ruling could mark a positive turn in efforts to obtain other documents that authorities have tried to keep secret. Other government agencies have frequently followed the Pest County Government Office’s example by refusing to disclose information and suggesting that requesters submit a new request to inspect the documents.

According to one of the documents,

in 2025 the factory in Göd was fined 12.5 million HUFs (35,035 EUR) for placing four people in serious danger.

The Government Office’s decision states that an official inspection was conducted following a suspected case of occupational disease. Inspectors found that several workers were operating hazardous lifting equipment without the required training or authorization, creating a serious and immediate risk.

The company attributed this violation of occupational-safety regulations to unexpected staffing changes and workforce reductions. Inspectors also found damaged and incomplete cutting machines and determined that chemical risk management had not been fully implemented at the Göd plant.

The government office also imposed

an occupational-safety fine of 100 million HUFs (280,282 EUR) in 2025 after the company exposed 66 people to serious and immediate danger.

This corroborates information contained in a document previously obtained by Átlátszó. In our article based on that document, we revealed that Samsung SDI Zrt. had failed to conduct the mandatory annual biological monitoring tests for workers exposed to carcinogenic heavy metals and had committed numerous other occupational-safety violations.

Among the newly received documents were two labor-law fines issued in 2024: one of 800,000 HUFs (2,242 EUR) and another of 950,000 HUFs (2,663 EUR). According to the decisions, the company failed to settle its obligations on time with two employees whose employment had been terminated; in other words, it neither paid the wages they were owed nor sent them their employment documents.

Fire safety inspection blocked

The disaster management authority also fined Samsung SDI in 2024, imposing a procedural fine of 900,000 HUFs (2,523 EUR).

This was because experts who arrived to conduct a targeted fire-safety inspection of the new buildings at the second battery factory in Göd

were denied access to the factory building at the agreed time.

The company argued that opening and closing the doors and windows would have changed the humidity and temperature, causing products used in manufacturing to be scrapped and resulting in financial losses for Samsung SDI Zrt.

The authority rejected this explanation, noting that the workspace is accessed through an airlock system that keeps humidity and temperature constant. It also noted that, had production been underway in the workspace, the inspection would have posed no greater risk than the production activities carried out by the workers.

In setting the amount of the fine, the authority took into account that the company itself had proposed December 27, 2023, as the date of the official inspection but then failed to allow the fire-safety inspection to take place that day.

The newly received documents, together with previous evidence uncovered by the Göd-ÉRT Association, show that Samsung SDI Zrt. was fined 61 times between 2018 and 2025.

The total amount of fines imposed to date is 405,279,000 HUFs (1,135,925 EUR).

However, this may still be only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to sanctions imposed on the Göd battery factory. One penalty decision referred to earlier fines listed in the Register of Administrative Sanctions. We learned of those fines only by chance, and only then were we able to request the relevant decisions from the competent authority. However, when we asked the Lechner Knowledge Center, which maintains the register, to disclose decisions listed for another company as data of public interest, our request was denied. In its response, the center stated that the decisions were not documents of public interest.

At the same time, it is shocking that the Hungarian public has no access to information about fines imposed on individual companies. Although the National Environmental Information System (OKIR) is supposed to provide data on fines imposed on individual environmental operators, in practice, decisions imposing penalties for environmental violations are usually not uploaded. Moreover, there is not even a general obligation to inform the public about disaster-management violations—even though, as Hungary’s battery industry expands, dozens of hazardous battery manufacturing plants are operating nationwide, often in breach of regulations.

In any case, we have submitted another freedom-of-information request to the Pest County Government Office for decisions imposing penalties on the Samsung factory after December 2025.

Two freedom-of-information requests were submitted via KiMitTud, Átlátszó’s data-request platform. KiMitTud enables anyone—not only us—to request public data easily and transparently from any national, municipal, or other public institution that performs public functions or spends public funds.