For more than eight years, Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee has been dealing with legal problems.
According to Bloomberg, Jay Y. Lee, the executive chairman of Samsung, has been found not guilty of criminal charges by the second-highest court in South Korea. The Seoul High Court confirmed its earlier ruling on Monday, which found Lee not guilty of stock manipulation and accounting fraud charges related to a merger that took place in 2015. Lee will be able to concentrate on Samsung's mobile and semiconductor businesses, which have experienced a decrease in profitability over the last few years, thanks to the verdict. Yee has always maintained that he has never committed any crimes.
According to analysts, the prosecution still has the option to appeal to Korea's Supreme Court, but it is improbable that they would win because they would not be able to offer any fresh reasons. Samsung lawyer Kim You Jin stated, "The investigation and trial of this case has taken an extremely long time." "We hope that the defendants can now concentrate on their work after this verdict."
In 2017, Lee was accused by prosecutors of manipulating the share price of two Samsung subsidiaries in order to make it easier for him to merge the companies and consolidate his authority. However, in early 2024, the court decided that the prosecution did not provide sufficient evidence to support that claim. A court observed in the verdict, "It is hard to say that Lee Jae-yong [aka Jay Y. Lee]... spearheaded the merger, and that the merger was done just for the sake of Lee's succession."
Business groups praised the decision at the time, but not everyone in the country was in agreement. In February 2024, Park Ju-geun, who is the head of the corporate think group Leaders Index, told The Financial Times, "The ruling will free Lee of legal risks, but I am at a loss for words in terms of the country’s economic justice." "This is completely contrary to all previous court decisions regarding the merger."
Lee was sentenced to five years in prison in 2017 after being found guilty of bribing public officials in connection with the same merger. However, the Supreme Court later overturned that verdict and ordered the case to be retried. Lee was sentenced to two and a half years in prison in early 2021 during the retrial. He was released on parole six months later. Park Geun-hye, the former president of Korea, was also imprisoned for her involvement in the same incident. In 2022, Lee was pardoned by Yoon Suk Yeol, the president of South Korea at the time. Yoon was just impeached and charged with rebellion for attempting to impose martial law.
