Seoul court orders Japanese company to compensate Korean forced labor victim

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Seoul court orders Japanese company to compensate Korean forced labor victim

Published: 20 Jun. 2024, 15:44

A Seoul appeals court on Thursday ruled in favor of a late South Korean victim of Japan's wartime forced labor, ordering Japanese construction company Kumagai Gumi to pay 100 million won ($72,200) in compensation to his bereaved family.

The appellate division of the Seoul Central District Court made the decision, reversing a district court's earlier ruling against the family.

The family, who launched the suit in April 2019, argued that the victim, surnamed Park, was conscripted into forced labor during Japan's 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.

At the trials, the statute of limitations for the claim for damages became a controversial issue.

Under the Civil Code, the right to claim compensation expires three years after the date the victim became aware of the damage caused by an illegal act.

At the first trial, the court determined that the statute of limitations had expired, as the family launched the suit more than three years after the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of a forced labor case in 2012. But the appeals court decided that the base point for the statute of limitations should be delayed to 2018, when the top court confirmed its ruling on the first forced labor case.

Yonhap