Japanese shipping line Mitsui OSK has paid Y2.9bn to the Shanghai Maritime Court to free an ore carrier impounded in a dispute that dates back to World War II, the FT's Lucy Hornby writes.

The Shanghai Court seized the vessel last weekend after ruling that Mitsui OSK, as heir to a pre-war Japanese shipping firm, owned Y2.4bn for decades of lease payments.It is the first time a Chinese court has ordered the seizure of Japanese assets in relation to the second world war.

The seizure opened the door to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in liabilities for Japanese companies over wartime disputes, mostly in payments sought by families of labourers who were forced to work in Japan during the war. Chinese courts accepted such a case for the first time in February, after decades of refusals. Last summer, South Korean courts ruled in favour of nine forced laborers after the Korean Supreme Court ruled that compensation paid during a peace treaty in the 1960s did not rule out claims from individuals.On Thursday, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency said Beijing’s No. 1 Intermediate Court had taken a similar stance in accepting China’s first forced labour case.