A Thai court on Tuesday granted a Japanese man custody of 13 children he had fathered using Thai surrogate mothers and who are now being cared for by the Thai government.
The Central Juvenile Court determined the 28-year-old man is the biological father of the children and found him capable of raising them because he is the founder and president of a company listed on a stock market.
"It is clear that my client has nothing to do with human trafficking and no criminal charges have been pressed against him," the man's lawyer said, thanking the court for giving the utmost consideration to the children's happiness and welfare during its deliberations.
The court also found that the man, who currently lives in Japan, plans to bring all his children -- now around 4 years old -- to his home country where it says he plans to enroll them in an international school and open bank accounts for them.
He reportedly hired many Thai women to bear his children in 2014. The man's lawyer had said his client wanted to have dozens of babies because he desired a large family and hoped that they would inherit his fortune in the future.
Thirteen babies were taken into care in 2014 and have been watched over by the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. The man filed a lawsuit in 2015, seeking custody of them.
(Press conference by the Thai police in August 2014)
The man appeared in court via video conference earlier this month to testify in the case, which has drawn widespread attention in Thailand.
Previously, surrogacy was not strictly regulated in Thailand, but it became a hot issue following this case and another involving an Australian couple who abandoned a surrogate baby born with Down's syndrome and took home only his healthy twin sister.
In 2015, the law was changed to make commercial surrogacy illegal.
