S Korea orders Japan assets seizure over forced labour

SEOUL, Jan 09 (AP): A South Korean court said on Wednesday it has ordered the seizure of local assets of a Japanese company after it refused to compensate several wartime forced laborers, in an escalation of a diplomatic brawl between the Asian neighbors.

Japan called the decision "extremely regrettable" and said it will push for talks with Seoul on the issue.

In a landmark ruling in October, South Korea's Supreme Court ordered Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to pay 100 million won ($88,000) each to four plaintiffs forced to work for the company when Japan colonized the Korean Peninsula in 1910-45.

But the company refused to follow that ruling, siding with Japan's long-held positon that all colonial-era compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty that restored diplomatic relations between the two governments.

Japanese officials said they could take the issue to the International Court of Justice.

On Wednesday, the Daegu District Court's branch office in the southeastern city of Pohang said it issued the seizure order for some Korean assets of the Japanese company in early January after lawyers for the plaintiffs filed a request to do so.