Government Files Appeal Against US Mason's Ruling on Compensation for Samsung C&T-Cheil Industries Merger Losses

The government announced on the 11th that it has filed a cancellation lawsuit against the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), which ordered it to pay approximately 32 million dollars in damages to the US private equity firm Mason related to the 'Samsung C&T-Cheil Industries merger.'

On the same day, the Ministry of Justice stated in a press release, "We have filed a cancellation lawsuit with the Singapore court, the seat of arbitration." Earlier, Mason, a shareholder of Samsung C&T, filed an international investment dispute (ISDS) against the Republic of Korea government in 2018, claiming damages due to unfair government intervention during the 2015 Samsung C&T-Cheil Industries merger process. The arbitral tribunal ruled on April 11 that the Korean government must compensate Mason with 32 million dollars.

The government explained that the arbitral tribunal misinterpreted the jurisdictional requirements under the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (FTA), and concluded that this constitutes a valid ground for cancellation under Singapore arbitration law. For ISDS cases under the FTA to be recognized as having jurisdiction, conditions such as ▲measures adopted or maintained by the government ▲relevance to the investor and the investment must be met, but the government judged that this case does not satisfy those requirements.

A Ministry of Justice official said, "We will do our best to correct this legally erroneous ruling and have it canceled to prevent the outflow of national wealth."

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