South Koreans seek Nippon Steel asset seizure in 'forced labour' case - paper

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean plaintiffs in a World War Two forced labour court case against Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp have applied to seize some of Nippon Steel's Korean assets, a South Korean newspaper reported on Wednesday.

The application for the asset seizure, if approved by the court, could further strain South Korea's already frosty bilateral relations with Japan over the issue.

Japan denounced a South Korean Supreme Court ruling in October that Nippon Steel should pay 100 million won ($90,500) to each of four South Koreans to compensate them for forced labour during the war.

The Japanese government said all wartime reparations were dealt with in a 1965 treaty that had normalised ties between the two neighbours.

The South Korean plaintiffs recently applied to the court for the seizure of Nippon Steel's shares in a Korea-based joint venture with steelmaker POSCO called "POSCO-Nippon Steel RHF Joint Venture", according to the Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

Nippon Steel owns a 30 percent stake, or 2.34 million shares, of the joint venture, worth about 11 billion won ($9.83 million), it reported. The paper did not say how much the Korean plaintiffs sought from the seizure.

Lawyers representing the South Korean plaintiffs did not respond to a request for comment. Representatives for courts with jurisdiction over the joint venture's South Korean offices could not be reached immediately for comment.

Repeated calls to Nippon Steel's office went unanswered. Wednesday is a holiday for most businesses in Japan.

Nippon Steel called it "extremely regrettable" at the time of the ruling but said it would review the decision carefully while considering further steps.

POSCO declined to comment.

South Korean plaintiffs that won similar cases in Korea's top court against Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd are also considering applying for seizure of the company's assets, such as patent rights, in the country, South Korean newspaper JoongAng Ilbo reported citing an unnamed representative lawyer.

Mitsubishi Heavy's main number went unanswered, and an automatic voice message said the company's office was closed until January 7th.

($1 = 1,118.7200 won)

(Reporting by Joyce Lee; Additional reporting by Mari Saito in TOKYO and Jane Chung in SEOUL; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)