The presidential office on the 18th said it "welcomes" the decision confirming "a victory for the Republic of Korea" by the Lone Star ISDS annulment committee of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), saying, "Errors in the previous arbitral award—which had recognized the government's liability for damages even though there was no illegality whatsoever by the government regarding the sale of Korea Exchange Bank—have been corrected."
Kang Yu-jung, presidential office Spokesperson, distributed a written statement to the media the same day and said, "By annulling the Lone Star win that the previous arbitral tribunal had rendered, the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has made it so that the Republic of Korea's liability to compensate Lone Star never arose in the first place."
She went on, "The government has so far formed a state-level response system and has done its utmost to handle the case," adding, "We welcome that our efforts have led to good results, and we thank the government official, the litigation counsel, and the public who trusted and supported the government for giving their all in the process."
Earlier, Prime Minister Kim Min-seok said at a briefing at the Government Complex Seoul on the afternoon of the same day, "At around 3:22 p.m. today, the government received a decision of 'victory for the Republic of Korea' from the Lone Star ISDS annulment committee of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) in Washington, D.C., United States." With this, ICSID's award ordering our government to pay $200 million (about 280 billion won) to Lone Star, a U.S. private equity fund (PEF), has been entirely annulled.
Since the first-instance award has been completely nullified, the international dispute that continued for more than 10 years since 2012 has concluded as a complete victory for our government.