The government filed for an annulment of an international tribunal ruling that ordered Seoul to compensate U.S. private equity firm Lone Star Funds over its planned sell-off of the now-defunct Korea Exchange Bank(KEB) in 2007.

The justice ministry said on Friday that it took the appeal to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes(ICSID), claiming an overstep of the tribunal’s authority, procedural violations, and a failure to present its reasoning for the ruling.

In November 2012, Lone Star filed for arbitration in an investor-state dispute seeking damages of four-point-68 billion U.S. dollars, or about six-point-two trillion won, claiming that the planned sale of its stake in KEB to HSBC in 2007 fell through due to excessive intervention by Seoul.

Last August, the ICSID ordered Seoul to pay compensation of around 216 million dollars, as well as interest based on the U.S. Treasury's monthly exchange rates since December 2011 that came to approximately 13-point-eight million dollars.

In late July, Lone Star filed for an annulment of the ICSID decision, claiming that the ordered compensation was insufficient.