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(LEAD) top court-forced labor

(LEAD) Supreme Court confirms Japan company should pay 100 mln won to forced labor victim

(ATTN: CORRECTS date of ruling)

SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Yonhap) -- The Supreme Court has finalized a ruling that ordered a Japanese construction company to pay 100 million won (US$69,500) in compensation to the family of a South Korean victim of Tokyo's wartime forced labor.

The family filed a compensation suit against the firm, Kumagai Gumi, in April 2019, claiming the victim, a 22-year-old surnamed Park, was conscripted into forced labor at its Fukushima office in October 1944 and worked there until his death the following February.

Park was one of many Koreans mobilized for forced labor during Japan's colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula from 1910-45.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court upheld the appellate court ruling that ordered the company to pay 100 million in compensation to the family, which was a reversal of a district court ruling that the statute of limitations had already passed.

In overturning that ruling, the appeals court had deemed that the base year for calculating the statute of limitations should be 2018, when the top court confirmed the right of forced labor victims to seek compensation for damages.

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