Court Orders Sale of Seized Assets of Forced Labor Perpetrator Nippon Steel

Attorney Jeon Beom-jin (center) and Kim Young-hwan, Director of External Cooperation at the Institute for Research in Collaborationist Activities (left), among others, are answering reporters' questions after the verdict hearing of the lawsuit filed by the bereaved families of forced labor victims against Nippon Steel at the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu on the 8th. The court ruled in favor of the defendant, stating, "The plaintiff's claim is dismissed." Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] The Pohang Branch of the Daegu District Court announced on the 30th that it has issued a sale order to liquidate the domestic assets of Nippon Steel (formerly Shin Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal), a Japanese company responsible for forced labor during the Japanese colonial period.

The asset subject to sale is shares of PNR, a Korean asset owned by Nippon Steel. Even with the sale order, if Nippon Steel files an immediate appeal, the order's effect will be suspended, so the Nippon Steel assets are not expected to be immediately liquidated.

Forced labor victims filed a lawsuit against Nippon Steel, and in October 2018, the Supreme Court's full bench ruled that "Shin Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal (Nippon Steel) must compensate each victim with 100 million KRW."

After Nippon Steel failed to pay compensation, on January 3, 2019, the Pohang Branch of the Daegu District Court approved the seizure application for 81,075 shares of PNR, a Korean asset of Nippon Steel, filed by the legal representatives of the forced labor victims, and on January 9 of the same year, the seizure order was delivered to PNR. The 81,075 shares of PNR amount to 453,750,000 KRW based on a face value of 5,000 KRW per share.

The Pohang Branch of the Daegu District Court began the process of delivering the seizure order to Nippon Steel in 2019. However, after the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs received the overseas service request but repeatedly returned the related documents without any explanation, on June 1 of last year, the court decided to publicly notify the seizure order for PNR.

The public notification of the seizure order for PNR shares filed by the forced labor victims and their families took effect at 0:00 on August 4 of last year, and the public notification of the hearing document regarding the sale order of PNR shares also took effect at 0:00 on August 9 of the same year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.