Photo : YONHAP News
The government has appealed a British court dismissal of a suit seeking to nullify an international tribunal ruling that ordered Seoul to pay some 130 billion won, or around 98 million U.S. dollars, to U.S.-based hedge fund Elliott Investment Management.
In the appeal, Seoul’s justice ministry argued that there was a serious error in the dismissal regarding an interpretation of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement(FTA) and other issues.
Earlier, an arbitration court in the United Kingdom dismissed Seoul’s suit to nullify The Hague-based Permanent Court of Arbitration’s(PCA) ruling, saying the South Korea-U.S. FTA provision, which Seoul has cited to argue the PCA’s jurisdiction violation, is not within its jurisdiction.
In June 2023, the PCA partially accepted Elliott’s claim that Seoul had violated the bilateral FTA during a controversial merger in 2015 of two Samsung Group affiliates, Cheil Industries with Samsung C&T, in which the hedge fund held a stake.
Elliott accused the Park Geun-hye administration of putting pressure on the National Pension Service, then a major stakeholder, to vote in favor of the merger, causing losses for the firm.