A North Korean company has lost a lawsuit it filed here against South Korean firms over an alleged unpaid bill.
The Seoul Central District Court on Tuesday ruled against Myongi general company and its South Korean plaintiff, Kim Han-shin, who heads an inter-Korean economic cooperation research center in Seoul. They had sued four companies in the first-ever lawsuit North Korea has filed against a South Korean business here.
In 2010, Myongi agreed to supply 2,600 tons of zinc to the South Korean companies for US$6 million. But the deal collapsed as a result of South Korea's ban on remittance to and trade with North Korea after the North sank the South Korean Navy corvette Cheonan.
Myongi filed the suit in 2019 over an unpaid bill amounting to some W5.3 billion. But the South Korean firms said they made the complete payment to a Chinese company that had brokered the deal.
"There was not enough evidence to conclude that Myongy had direct dealings with the South Korean companies," the court ruled. "It seems clear that a third-party company was involved in supplying the zinc to the defendants."
