Overview
- An ICSID ad hoc committee dismissed Fengzhen Min’s annulment request on Sept. 13, 2026, and ordered him to pay about 1.51 billion won to South Korea plus additional ad hoc proceeding costs.
- The ruling leaves intact a May 2024 arbitral award that found Min’s investment was procured through an illegal scheme and therefore fell outside protection under the Korea‑China investment treaty.
- The dispute began with Pi Korea’s 2007 project financing of roughly 380 billion won arranged by Woori Bank to buy a Beijing office building, and continued through South Korean civil and criminal cases that culminated in a 2017 Supreme Court loss and criminal convictions tied to improper payments.
- Min first sought about 2 trillion won in damages when he filed an ISDS claim in 2020, a figure that was narrowed to about 264.1 billion won during the arbitration that the tribunal ultimately dismissed.
- The government says the outcome reinforces that investments made or operated in breach of domestic law are not protected by investor‑state dispute settlement, a position that follows recent Korean wins in other high‑profile investor disputes and could curb similar claims.