South Korea court orders Mitsubishi asset seizure over WWII forced labour
SEOUL: A South Korean court has approved the seizure of Mitsubishi’s assets over the Japanese industrial giant’s use of forced labour during World War II, an activist group said yesterday.
Japan and South Korea are both democracies, market economies and US allies, but their relationship has been strained for decades as a result of Tokyo’s brutal 191045 colonial rule over the Korean peninsula.
Around 780,000 Koreans were conscripted into forced labour by Japan during the 35-year occupation, according to data from Seoul, not including women forced into sexual slavery by Japanese troops.
After years of legal battles, five Korean victims won a ruling from the country’s Supreme Court in November ordering Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay each plaintiff compensation of up to 150 million won ( US$ 132,000).
Four of the wartime labour conscripts filed an asset seizure request in January, saying Mitsubishi had failed to respond to court orders. One plaintiff died earlier this year.
On Friday, the Daejeon District Court south of Seoul ordered the seizure of two trademark rights and six patents belonging to Mitsubishi, a civic group campaigning against Japan’s forced wartime labour policies said.
“The process of compulsory execution against war criminal firms has officially begun,” the group said in a statement.
“With the latest court ruling, the debtor will be barred from carrying out transfer of rights... or any other act of disposal on the concerned trademark and patent rights,” it added. — AFP