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Supreme Court upholds compensation ruling for families of forced labor victims

Published: 09 Feb. 2026, 12:35 Updated: 09 Feb. 2026, 18:34

The Supreme Court building in Seocho District, southern Seoul, on Dec. 8, 2025. [YONHAP]

The Korean Supreme Court has upheld a ruling ordering a Japanese company to compensate five bereaved families of Koreans who died after being forced into labor under Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

The top court recently finalized a Seoul High Court decision that ordered Nishimatsu Construction to pay 20 million won ($13,700) to one plaintiff surnamed Bae, and around 13 million won each to the remaining four, according to legal sources on Monday.

The plaintiffs are relatives of victims who were forcibly mobilized to work for Nishimatsu Construction in Buryong County, North Hamgyong Province, now in North Korea, during the colonial era and later died. They filed the damages suit in April 2019, arguing the company was liable for an illegal act.

The key disputes were whether claims for consolation money tied to forced mobilization were covered by the 1965 Korea-Japan Claims Agreement and whether the statute of limitations had expired.

Under the Civil Act, a damages claim generally expires 10 years from the date of the illegal act, or three years from when the victim becomes aware of both the damage and the perpetrator.

A civic group holds a protest in Tokyo on April 11, 2025, demanding that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Nippon Steel pay compensation to the victims of forced labor during WWII. [YONHAP]

The first-instance court recognized the plaintiffs’ right to seek damages, citing Supreme Court precedent that such claims are not covered by the 1965 agreement, but dismissed the case as time-barred because more than three years had passed since a 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

The appeals court overturned that decision, holding that the clock should be counted from 2018, when the Supreme Court’s en banc ruling conclusively clarified the legal view that forced-labor consolation claims fall outside the scope of the 1965 agreement. It said the plaintiffs faced an objective obstacle to exercising their rights until that point.

The Supreme Court found no error in that reasoning and upheld the appeals court ruling.

The Supreme Court also upheld on Jan. 29 a lower-court decision that partially sided with plaintiffs in a separate forced labor damages case against Kumagai Gumi.

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.
BY JUNG SI-NAE [[email protected]]