By Kim Young Deok and Yoon Sojung

The legal process to seize the Korea-based assets of Nippon Steel, formerly Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp., began at midnight on Aug. 4.

The assets slated for seizure include 81,075 shares of PNR, a joint venture between the Japanese company and the Korean steelmaker POSCO, worth an estimated KRW 400 million. The value is equivalent to the reparation the Korean Supreme Court on Oct. 30, 2018, ordered Nippon Steel to pay in a verdict.

Should the Japanese company fail to file an immediate appeal by midnight on Aug. 11, the seizure will be confirmed and move to the next step of disposal. Japan's Kyodo News on Aug. 4 reported that Nippon Steel plans on filing an immediate appeal to this decision.

Despite the Korean Supreme Court's verdict, Japan has maintained that the forced labor issue was definitively resolved through the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Agreement, saying the ruling violates international law.

As the defendant made no moves to accept the ruling, the plaintiff asked the court to seize the PNR shares to liquidate them for awarding reparation.

The Pohang branch of the Daegu District Court on June 1 decided to give public notice of the ruling on the seizure of Nippon Steel's Korea-based assets. This is a legal procedure of making a public announcement on the court's bulletin board or in a newspaper so that the notice has the same effect as that of court delivery if sending court documents to recipients is difficult.

An estimated 1.46 million Koreans were forced to work at coal mines or munitions factories while the Korean Peninsula was under Japanese colonial rule, with few of the victims still alive.

kyd1991@korea.kr