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Photo courtesy of Yonhap News |
[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] A South Korean court has ordered Nippon Steel to pay ₩100 million (approx. USD 73,000) in damages to the family of a victim of wartime forced labor during Japan’s colonial rule.
On June , Judge Kim Seung-gon of the Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of the son of the late victim, identified as Mr. A, in a lawsuit seeking compensation for forced labor. The court ordered Nippon Steel to pay the full amount claimed.
Mr. A’s grandson — a sitting judge — acted as the legal representative in a personal capacity. Under Article 88 of the Korean Civil Procedure Act, close relatives can serve as legal representatives in lower-value cases with court approval.
Mr. A, born in 1922, was forcibly taken in 1944 to work at a Nippon Steel plant in Fukuoka, Japan, before returning to Korea after liberation. He passed away in 2015, and his son filed the damages lawsuit in March 2019.
The case, like many others, centered on the issue of the statute of limitations. Nippon Steel argued that the three-year window for filing claims had expired, asserting that the claim should have been filed within three years of the Korean Supreme Court’s 2012 landmark decision recognizing victims’ rights to seek compensation.
However, the court rejected this argument, ruling that the statute of limitations should be calculated from 2018, when the Supreme Court’s decision was finalized by its full bench, rather than from 2012.
This interpretation aligns with a December 2023 Supreme Court ruling, which clarified that Japanese companies cannot invoke the statute of limitations for claims filed before the 2018 decision became final. Lower courts have since followed this precedent, increasingly ruling in favor of forced labor victims and their families.
This ruling marks another significant legal victory for victims of Japan’s wartime forced labor and their descendants, reaffirming the responsibility of Japanese companies for historical injustices.
AlphaBIZ Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
