Elliott Investment Management's website is seen in this screenshot on Oct. 28.SCREEN CAPTURE
The Korean government has dropped its eight-year fight against U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management over the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates and accepted an order to pay the fund $113 million.
The Ministry of Justice said Wednesday it will not ask a British court to overturn the Sept. 30 arbitration ruling in Elliott’s favor.
The ruling ordered the government to pay $48.5 million in damages, plus late-payment interest and legal costs. Elliott said the total comes to $113 million in a statement released the same day. The government’s release on Wednesday put it at 153 billion won ($114 million).
The ministry reached the decision after analyzing the ruling and gathering opinions from other government ministries, the law firms representing the government and outside experts. The review weighed both the chances of overturning the ruling and the cost of further litigation, the ministry said.
The dispute stems from the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries. Elliott, then a Samsung C&T shareholder, filed an investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claim under the Korea-U.S. FTA in July 2018. It argued that the government had improperly interfered with how the National Pension Service (NPS) voted on the deal and that Elliott suffered losses as a result.
In June 2023, an arbitration tribunal administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration found the government liable. After correcting the award that September, it set the damages at $48.5 million. Elliott had sought $770 million.
A Samsung flag flies outside the conglomerate’s office in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Feb. 5, 2025. The Korean government has accepted an arbitration order to pay U.S. hedge fund Elliott Management $113 million over the 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates.YONHAP
The government asked the High Court in London, the seat of the arbitration, to overturn the award in July 2023. The High Court dismissed the challenge in August 2024, but the Court of Appeal sided with the government in July 2025 and sent the case back to the lower court.
In February, the High Court overturned part of the award, ruling that the NPS was not a state organ. The court upheld the tribunal’s jurisdiction over the actions of then-President Park Geun-hye’s office and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. It sent the case back to the tribunal to decide again whether those actions had caused Elliott’s losses, among other questions.
The tribunal, made up of the same three arbitrators, ruled on Sept. 30 that the government’s actions had caused the losses. It again held the government liable for the $48.5 million and interest.
The government’s win in the British courts sent the case back to arbitration, but the tribunal upheld its liability in the end. The ISDS case closes eight years and three months after Elliott filed it, with the government ultimately defeated.
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
