Tribunal rejects Dayyani family's 770 billion won claim that Korea paid its first award too slowly

The second claim was for about nine times the money it concerned ^[1]. Korea owed the family 85.8 billion won in damages and interest under the first award ^[9]. The family sought 770 billion won ^[1] for the profits it said it could have earned by investing that money elsewhere had it been paid at once ^[11]. The delay was real. The award came in June 2018 ^[7] and the main payment of 62.2 billion won arrived in April 2022 ^[9], nearly four years later ^[2]. US sanctions on Iran and seizure orders from a domestic lawsuit held the payment up ^[18]. Min Kyung-won, a prosecutor in the Justice Ministry's international investment dispute division, said the family argued, "Why comply with economic sanctions imposed by the United States, a third country?" ^[13] Korea's reply, as Min described it, was that financial institutions that ignore OFAC approval requirements are shut out of the dollar market ^[14]. The panel agreed that seeking approval was legitimate given US sanctions on Iran ^[12]. It also found that depositing the last 23.6 billion won with a court under a domestic order was neither arbitrary nor unfair ^{[10] [12]}. The cost order is small next to the claim. The family pays 4 billion won toward Korea's legal fees and 800 million won in administrative costs ^[4], 4.8 billion won in all ^[3], or about 0.6% of what it asked for ^[4]. Because the 4 billion won covers 75% of Korea's legal bill ^[4], Seoul still carries roughly 1.3 billion won itself ^[5]. The family's own legal costs were not disclosed. Counted from 2010, the family has come out close to even. Its subsidiary D&A paid 57.8 billion won in deposits to buy Daewoo Electronics in November 2010 ^[5]. The creditors kept the money when they ended the deal ^[6]. Korea has since paid the family 62.2 billion won directly ^[9]. After the 4.8 billion won it now owes, the family is about 0.4 billion won short of the forfeited deposit, in nominal won and before its own lawyers ^[6]. The other 23.6 billion won sits with a court under orders from the Winia Electronics dispute ^[10]. Seoul Economic Daily places the ruling in a run of Korean wins that includes Lone Star, Schindler and the Chinese investor Feng Zhenmin ^[2]. The ministry claims more for it. Kang Jun-ha, director general of its international legal affairs bureau, said Korea "won the case in full, by unanimous decision of the tribunal" ^[3]. He said the decision "will effectively prevent 'appeal-style arbitration shopping,' in which investors target states that lost an ISDS case by taking issue with procedural delays during negotiations or with legitimate seizures ordered by domestic courts." ^[16] The government reads the award broadly: follow-on cases over payment are finished, because the panel held that an unpaid award is enforced through the courts and cannot be recast as a new treaty violation ^[15]. A narrower reading ties the result to its facts, an OFAC requirement and a domestic court order ^[12], and leaves a delay with neither behind it untested. A third reading concerns the merits, which this panel did not reach. The family won its first case over the forfeited deposit ^[7], and Korea lost its bid to annul that award in a British court in 2019 ^[8]. I think the narrower readings fit the evidence better. The award makes a second treaty case over payment much harder; it does little to a first case over what a state did. The counter-case is that a string of state wins and cost orders raises the expected price of any claim against Seoul. That is a fair argument about deterrence, but a cost order worth 0.6% of the ask ^[4] is too small to carry it.