Jason Hun WON v Korea - KORUS FTA - Response to Notice of Arbitration by the International Dispute Settlement Division, Ministry of Justice, Republic of Korea - 4 June 2021
Country
Year
2021
Summary
I. INTRODUCTION
1. Pursuant to the Free Trade Agreement between the Republic of Korea (the "ROK" or "Respondent") and the United States of America (the "Treaty") and in accordance with Article 4 of the UNCITRAL Arbitration Rules as revised in 2010 (the "UNCITRAL Rules"), the ROK submits this Response to the Notice of Arbitration (the "NOA")1 submitted by Hun Won ("Won" or the "Claimant").2
2. The Claimant submits that this case concerns the ROK's expropriation without just compensation, and as a result, the Respondent violates its obligations under the Treaty.
3. The Claimant's claims, however, are not within the jurisdiction of the Arbitral Tribunal for various reasons. Moreover, his assertions are unfounded and based on a misunderstanding of the redevelopment process, and lack factual and legal merits.
4. The ROK will further elaborate on the Claimant's failure to meet the burden of proving not only his factual and legal claims, but the existence of the Arbitral Tribunal's jurisdiction according to the schedule established by the Arbitral Tribunal at a later stage. In this Response, the ROK sets out below its preliminary responses to the Claimant's assertions made in the NOA.
II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
5. This dispute concerns an ongoing redevelopment project in Busan, ROK which includes Chelsea Studio--a building formerly owned by the Claimant in this dispute, and which Claimant argues had not been justly compensated for--with the address of 22 Hoam-ro 25 Beon-gil, Gwangan-dong, Suyeong-gu, Busan Metropolitan City ("Busan"), ROK (the "Gwangan Project"). When the Gwangan Project is completed, a total of 1,237 apartment units will be constructed.3
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Footnotes omitted from this introduction