S.Korea's appellate court upholds order to Nippon Steel to compensate WWII forced labor victims
0 Comment(s)
Print
E-mail Xinhua, June 26, 2019
A South Korean appellate court on Wednesday upheld a lower court's order to a Japanese steelmaker to compensate the South Korean victims of forced labor during the World War II.
The Seoul High Court ruled that Nippon Steel Corp. pay 100 million won (US$86,400) in compensation each to the family members of the seven South Korean victims for their wartime forced labor without pay, according to local media reports.
The seven plaintiffs began the compensation suit in 2013, and a Seoul district court ruled in favor of them in 2015. For the past six years, all of the plaintiffs passed away because of old age.
The victims were forced into hard labor between 1942 and 1945 by the Japanese steelmaker. The Korean Peninsula was colonized by the Imperial Japan from 1910 to 1945.
The Japanese company changed its name into Nippon Steel earlier this year from Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., which was created in 2012 with the merger between Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries.
The high court's ruling was in line with the South Korean top court's order in October last year that Nippon Steel should compensate forced labor victims.
The South Korean top court passed a similar judgement, ordering Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to compensate two groups of South Korean victims over wartime forced labor.
Additional South Korean victims sued other Japanese firms, including Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp. and Mitsubishi Materials Corp., claiming that they or their family members were adversely affected by the wartime forced labor.
South Korean historians said at least 700,000 young Koreans were coerced into hard labor without pay by Japanese firms during the Pacific War.
Japan claimed that the reparation issues were settled through the 1965 accord that normalized the diplomatic ties between South Korea and Japan following the colonial era, but South Korea said the pact did not refer to individuals' rights to compensation.
Nippon Steel and other Japanese companies have not complied with compensation rulings from the South Korean courts yet.
Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)