Controversy over Samsung's responsibility for workers' illnesses has been growing since 2007 after Hwang Yu-mi, a former employee at Samsung's chipmaking facility south of Seoul, died from leukemia.

Around 160 victims have applied for compensation since September 2015, with 120 of them being provided with financial support so far.

"Despite the deadline being set at Dec. 31, 2015, we are still accepting applications," a Samsung Electronics official said. "If they are not satisfied with our compensation, they can report the case to the government as an industrial accident. They will be eligible to receive compensation from industrial insurance depending on the government's judgment."

Samsung said it expresses regret over the suffering of its workers regardless of the actual cause and is currently moving to solve the problem.

The Protector of Health and Human Rights of Semiconductor Workers, the advocacy group of the victims, meanwhile, has been staging a protest in front of Samsung Group's headquarters in Seoul for more than 500 days, demanding the tech firm admit the correlation between the working environment and diseases.

"The majority of our scientific findings deny the correlations," a Samsung official said. (Yonhap)