South Korean court orders Mitsubishi Heavy to pay wartime labor compensation

A district court in South Korea has ordered the sale of a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries patent held by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. for forced wartime labor compensation to a Korean woman, according to a lawyer for the plaintiff.

The order, dated April 29, comes on top of a similar ruling by the same court in Daejeon in the central part of the country to two other plaintiffs in September regarding a patent and trademark held by the Japanese manufacturer, but seized by the court.

The district court orders were based on a South Korean Supreme Court ruling in 2018 that ordered Mitsubishi Heavy to pay damages to a group of women for their labor during Japan's 1910 -- 45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

The court order for the two plaintiffs was appealed by the company to the Supreme Court.

In 2018, the top court ordered another Japanese company, Nippon Steel Corp., to compensate Korean plaintiffs over forced labor during colonial rule. Nippon Steel was ordered by a court order in December 2021 to sell its assets to pay for damages awarded to the plaintiffs.

Both companies refused to comply with the ruling, with the Japanese government saying that issues of claims stemming from the colonial period have been settled under a bilateral agreement signed alongside the 1965 treaty that normalized ties between the two countries.

In both cases, plaintiffs are taking steps to see the liquidation of the corporate assets that the court seized for them. The Japanese government is considering taking retaliatory measures if the seized assets are sold and cause harm to the Japanese companies.

The wartime labor rulings in the Supreme Court have worsened Japan-South Korea relations, which have been overshadowed by disputes stemming from the colonial rule, including the issue of comfort women, the women forced or coerced into Japan's wartime brothel system under various circumstances, including abduction, deception and poverty.

The South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, said the South Korean side understands Japan's worries and that the two countries should seek a solution together.