In the 2017 incident at a Charoen Pokphand Foods (CPF) duck processing plant in Bangkok, CPF reportedly offered 3 million THB in compensation to the family of each of the five victims, including a Chulalongkorn University veterinary student who fell into a wastewater treatment pond.
Financial and Legal Consequences
Beyond the direct compensation, the incident triggered several costly outcomes for the company:
Total Direct Payout: Approximately 15 million THB in immediate compensation for the five families (student and four employees), plus additional funeral expenses and scholarships for the victims’ children up to bachelor degree level.
Operational Stoppage: The facility’s wastewater treatment system was ordered by the Department of Industrial Works to shut down for 30 days for inspection and safety improvements.
Legal Penalties:
The plant’s wastewater treatment manager was charged with negligence resulting in death, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail and a 200,000 THB fine.
The Ministry of Labour filed criminal charges against CPF executives for failing to inform employees of site hazards, facing potential fines of up to 400,000 THB and one year in prison. Learn More OSHA Laws for EXPAT
The “Required Sales Trap” Applied
To demonstrate this to management, you can use the profit margin logic discussed earlier:
Direct Cost Estimate: ~16 million THB (Compensation + Fines).
Indirect Cost Estimate (2x Multiplier): ~32 million THB (30-day shutdown, investigation time, brand damage).
Total Impact: 48 million THB.
The Trap: If operating at a 3% profit margin, CPF would need to generate 1.6 billion THB in new sales just to recover the financial loss of this single failure in engineering controls (the missing pond cover).
That is how its end.