The Seoul Administrative Court Tuesday suspended the Financial Services Commission (FSC)’s disciplinary action against Samsung BioLogics for alleged disclosure violation.

Samsung BioLogics' headquarters in Songdo, Incheon.

On Jan. 22, the company also obtained a court injunction to suspend the SFC’s discipline regarding the company’s accounting violation. With the court’s latest decision, Samsung BioLogics had come to be free from the regulator’s two disciplinary actions.

The court accepted the company’s argument that enforcing the penalties before a formal court ruling can cause irrecoverable damage to the firm.

In the first discipline, the FSC told Samsung BioLogics to fire its CEO and CFO and receive auditing by a designated external auditor for three years for its failure to disclose the call options with Biogen, a partner in establishing Samsung Bioepis, in June last year.

The FSC released the conclusion of its second investigation in November year, saying that the company intentionally violated accounting rules ahead of its initial public offering in 2016 by changing the status of Samsung Bioepis from a subsidiary to an affiliate. It then imposed the second discipline, including a fine of 8 billion won ($7.1 million), and requested the firm to correct its balance sheet.

The biosimilar maker continuously stated that it is unfair to impose two disciplines based on the same financial statement.

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