Lawyers for South Koreans who won a wartime forced labor case against Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. said Friday they will "immediately" start the process of liquidating the Japanese steelmaker's seized assets in a move likely to further fuel bilateral tension over the issue.
The declaration came after the lawyers who came to Japan were rebuffed by Nippon Steel when they sought to hold talks on compensation that the company has been asked to pay in line with a South Korean top court ruling in October.
(Lawyers for South Koreans who won a wartime forced labor case against Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corp. speak to reporters on Feb. 15, 2019 in front of the company's head office in Tokyo.)
"It's regrettable that we could not even see the faces of (Nippon Steel) officials in charge of this matter even though we have made visits three times since last year" to the Japanese steelmaker's headquarters in central Tokyo, said Lim Jae Sung, one of the lawyers.
They said they will start the liquidation process as soon as they return to South Korea.
Tokyo reacted sharply to the latest development as it takes the position that the issue of claims stemming from Japan's 1910 to 1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula has already been settled under a bilateral accord signed alongside a 1965 treaty that established diplomatic ties.
"The situation is extremely serious," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said in a news conference.
Some officials in Tokyo suggested earlier that Japan may take retaliatory steps, such as imposing higher tariffs on imports from South Korea, if Nippon Steel's assets are liquidated.
South Korean courts have in recent months granted compensation to plaintiffs in wartime labor cases involving Japanese companies.
Tokyo has called on Japanese companies not to agree to compensate the plaintiffs, while requesting that Seoul come up with measures to protect the business activities of Japanese companies in South Korea and agree to engage in intergovernmental consultations to resolve the issue.
In the Nippon Steel case, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that ordered the company to pay four South Koreans 100 million won ($88,600) each.
In January, the Daegu District Court's branch office in the southeastern city of Pohang approved a request from the lawyers to seize the steelmaker's shares in a joint venture with South Korean steelmaker POSCO for failing to comply with the order.
The Japanese steel producer owns a 30 percent stake, or about 2.34 million shares, in POSCO-Nippon Steel RHF Joint Venture and around 81,000 shares are subject to the seizure.
Lim said the lawyers will go ahead with procedures to seize additional stock.
The South Korean top court has also ordered Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. to pay compensation for wartime forced labor.
Relatives of the former laborers visited the headquarters of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Tokyo on Friday to warn that they plan to seize the company's assets if the Japanese company does not respond to talks for compensation by the end of February.
