Request Made to Local Court to Begin Seizing Assets from Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in South Korea

If the Moon administration allows the auctioning of the assets of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in South Korea, I wonder what the Japanese response will be? Would they try and auction off the assets of a major Korean company like Hyundai in Japan in response? If so this dispute could get even uglier:

Plaintiffs who won a compensation suit against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for its wartime forced labor filed a formal request to a local court Tuesday to seize and liquidate the Japanese firm’s assets in Korea, after the company refused to abide by a November Supreme Court ruling in their favor.

The request came amid an escalating feud between the two countries following the court verdict and Japan’s alleged retaliatory move restricting exports of key materials to Korea. 

The action comes eight months after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling, which sided with 87-year-old Yang Geum-deok and four other plaintiffs who were forced to work without pay at a Mitsubishi aircraft plant in Nagoya during World War II. The court ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to pay between 100 million won ($85,000) and 150 million won to each victim in legal compensation. 

But the company refused to pay, and also ignored multiple requests to negotiate an agreement, according to the plaintiffs’ lawyers. During this time, three plaintiffs passed away. 

“There is a limit to waiting,” civic groups that supported the five said in a press conference on behalf of the plaintiffs, Tuesday. “As we warned, we have asked the court to order the sale of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry’s assets in Korea.” 

The request was filed with Daejeon District Court, targeting the “liquidation of six patents and two trademark rights” which the company was granted in Korea, including its new MHI English logo. Earlier in March, they asked a court to allow them to “seize the intellectual properties,” a request that was accepted. 

Korea Times

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