A Korean lower court Tuesday ruled that an international marriage broker is not responsible for a foreign spouse who ran away.

Seoul Central District Court upheld the previous rulings the evidence was insufficient to confirm that the broker had known that the runaway wife did not initially have intentions to marry and the broker deliberately provided false information about the foreign wife.

A Korean man in his 50s surnamed Han met a Filipino woman in the Philippines in 2011 through the marriage broker after paying a fee of 24 million won ($21,000). The couple married in the Philippines and settled in Korea in July 2012.

The foreign wife, however, ran away from home 56 days after arriving here, and severed contact with her husband.

In 2013, Han sought compensation of 6 million won and return of the brokerage fee, claiming that the middleman allegedly had known that the wife came to Korea without intentions to marry. He also argued that the broker did not give documents of the contract and personal information of the spouse.

The court ruled that there was no causality between the spouse’s runaway and the provision of the documents. It is also difficult to see that Han had suffered damages, the verdict added.

The court, however, ordered that the broker return a partial brokerage fee of 9 million won to Han, saying that the contract was not terminated upon matchmaking, but that it was valid until Han filed the lawsuit.

By Lee Hyun-jeong (rene@heraldcorp.com)