A South Korean court on Monday approved a request to seize Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.'s assets in South Korea after the company refused to compensate Koreans who had won a case against it over wartime forced labor, a team of lawyers for the plaintiffs said.
The decision by the district court in Daejeon followed a South Korean Supreme Court ruling last year that ordered the major Japanese manufacturer to compensate those forced to work for the firm during World War II.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is the second Japanese company to be hit with such a move, after a South Korean court approved in January the seizure of assets held by Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to compensate Koreans for conscripted labor during World War II.