Japanese steelmaker warned of legal step over Korean wartime forced laborers

Lawyers for Korean wartime forced laborers have demanded that a Japanese steelmaker respond to their request to discuss compensation, AP reported. The two lawyers on Tuesday asked Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. in Tokyo to respond by December 24. They warned if there’s no response, they’ll seek to freeze part of the company’s assets in South Korea. Seoul’s top court had ordered Nippon Steel to compensate four plaintiffs 100 million won ($87,680) each after they were forced to work at the company during Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula. The court has made similar rulings on another Japanese company. Tokyo says all wartime compensation issues were settled by a 1965 treaty between the governments.