SEOUL -- A South Korean district court's local branch is one step closer to converting assets seized from Nippon Steel Corp. into cash, in a lawsuit filed against the company by former wartime requisitioned workers from the Korean Peninsula.
Taking another step toward completing the conversion, the Pohang Branch of the Daegu District Court has decided to use the method of "service by publication," by which some of the written rulings and other documents are posted online for a certain period of time, and thus are deemed to have been delivered.
Using this method, the document ordering the seizure of assets will be delivered to Nippon Steel -- formerly Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. -- which was ordered to pay compensation to the four former laborers in the lawsuit.
With this procedure, the seizure of the assets is complete, moving one step closer to converting them into cash, which will be allocated to compensation payments.
South Korea's Supreme Court on Oct. 30, 2018, finalized a ruling that ordered the Japanese company to pay 100 million won (about 8.9 million yen) to each of the four former laborers.
Following the top court's ruling, the district court in January and March 2019 ordered the seizure of 194,794 shares in Posco-Nippon Steel RHF Joint Venture Co. (PNR), which was set up by Nippon Steel and a major South Korean steelmaker.
According to the plaintiffs' attorneys and other sources, court documents, including a seizure order, would be sent to the parties concerned through the Japanese Foreign Ministry. However, the ministry has refused, so Nippon Steel has yet to receive them.
In response, the district court on Monday decided to use the method of service by publication.
It takes two months for this method to take effect when documents are sent abroad. In this case, the seizure will be completed on Aug. 4 when it can be deemed the documents have been delivered to the Japanese company.
The focus is on when to sell the seized assets and convert them into cash for compensation. The district court is unlikely to order the sales of the assets for two months while the service by publication procedure is under way.
In addition, there are several procedures to go through before the conversion is realized. The district court must complete the delivery of a written examination, which was sent to Nippon Steel in July last year to seek the company's opinion on the application for the sales order, as well as the appraisal of the assets to calculate the sales price.
The service by publication method will possibly be used each time a document is sent in future proceedings. Taking this into consideration, the timing of the cash conversion will possibly be sometime after the end of the year, according to Japanese and South Korean diplomatic sources.
Although there is still time left for Japan and South Korea to work out a solution through dialogue, the administration of South Korean President Moon Jae-in advocates victim-centric principles and has not changed its stance to follow a judicial decision.
"We hope that any further enforcement procedures will proceed expeditiously," the plaintiffs' attorneys said in a statement on Wednesday.
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