Forced labor victim withdraws request for Japanese firms' asset liquidation

SEOUL, June 8 (Yonhap) -- A surviving victim of Japan's wartime forced labor has withdrawn a request for a court order to dispose of assets of Japanese firms after accepting the Seoul government's compensation plan, sources said Monday.

In landmark rulings in 2018, the Supreme Court ordered Japanese firms, including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and Nippon Steel Corp., to compensate 15 South Koreans they hired for forced labor while Korea was under Japan's colonial rule.

As the Japanese firms refused to pay the ordered compensation, however, the victims and their families filed requests for the liquidation of their assets in South Korea. A district court in 2021 ruled in favor of the victims, but the case has since been pending at the Supreme Court for over a year.

According to legal sources on Thursday, one of the victims submitted an application withdrawing the asset liquidation request to the Supreme Court the previous day.

The person is one of the three surviving forced labor victims who had objected to the South Korean government's plan, announced in March, to compensate the 15 plaintiffs through a South Korean foundation without Japan's involvement.

The victim recently reversed the stance and conveyed a decision to accept the third-party reimbursement to the government.

The bereaved families of 10 of the plaintiffs previously accepted the government reimbursement plan, but two surviving victims and the families of the other two late victims are resisting the scheme.

pbr@yna.co.kr
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