On 28 October 2026, South Korea's justice ministry announced that it would accept the remanded arbitral award in favour of Elliott Investment Management and would not bring a further action to set it aside. The dispute goes back to the 2015 merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries; Elliott, a minority shareholder in Samsung C&T, started proceedings in 2018, arguing that the government had improperly steered the approval of the deal. A tribunal administered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration found for Elliott in 2023 and awarded about USD 48.49 million in damages. Korea then challenged the award in the High Court in London, which earlier this year held that the National Pension Service's vote for the merger could not be attributed to the Korean state under international law, partially set aside the jurisdictional findings and sent Elliott's remaining claims, based on other government conduct, back to the tribunal. On 30 September the tribunal found a causal link between that government intervention and Elliott's loss and again ordered the same damages; with interest and costs, the total is reported at roughly USD 113–114 million. The case matters because it tests how far a state can be held responsible for decisions taken through a state-owned investor.

In my view, the outcome is a good advertisement for the remission tool. The London court did not throw away years of work; it corrected the jurisdictional basis and let the tribunal decide whether the claim survived on a narrower footing. I believe Korea's decision not to fight a second round also deserves credit, because finality is the whole point of arbitration! The gap, however, is that the attribution question has been resolved by one national court in a set-aside proceeding, not by a body whose reasoning binds future tribunals, so investors and states will keep litigating what counts as conduct of the state when a public fund votes its shares. The practical lesson for counsel is clear: plead attribution in the alternative and build a causation case on every layer of state conduct, because the strongest theory may be the first one a court removes!

Source: The Korea Times, 28 October 2026; The Korea Herald, 28 October 2026; The Korea Times, 1 October 2026; Hedgeweek, 24 February 2026