SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – Samsung’s descendant, Lee Jae-yong, and prosecutors decided not to appeal a court decision that condemned him for bribing the former president of South Korea for commercial favors, confirming a prison sentence. two and a half years’ imprisonment for the country’s most influential corporate leader, according to lawyers and court officials on Monday.
But Lee’s legal problems are not over. He was indicted separately on charges of stock price manipulation, breach of trust and audit violations related to a 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates. The deal helped strengthen Lee’s control over Samsung’s corporate empire.
The bribery allegation involving Lee was a major crime in the 2016 corruption scandal that took Park Geun-hye out of the presidency and sent her to prison.
In a much-anticipated trial of Lee last week, the Seoul Supreme Court found him guilty of bribing Park and one of his confidants to obtain government support for the contentious merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, which helped to strengthen Lee’s control over Samsung Empire’s business.
The deal faced opposition from some shareholders, who argued that it unfairly benefited the Lee family and was only successful with the support of a state-controlled national pension fund, one of Samsung’s biggest investors.
Lee portrayed himself as a victim of abuse of presidential power and his lawyers criticized the decision. But after pondering his options, Lee decided to “humbly accept” the Supreme Court’s decision, said Chief Prosecutor Injae Lee.
Prosecutors requested Lee Jae-yong a 9-year prison term. In a statement released to the national media, they said the court was very tolerant of Lee considering the seriousness of his crimes, but they will not appeal because their main purpose is to prove that the payments between Lee and Park were bribes.
Samsung did not release a statement on Lee’s legal issues.
Lee, 52, heads the Samsung group as vice president of Samsung Electronics, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of computer chips and smartphones.
Like other family conglomerates in South Korea, Samsung has been credited with helping to boost the country’s economy to one of the largest in the world from the rubble of the 1950-53 Korean War. But its opaque property structures and often corrupt ties to bureaucrats and government officials have been seen as a focus of corruption in South Korea.
Although he never admitted legal wrongdoing, Lee expressed remorse for causing “public concern” about the corruption scandal and worked to improve Samsung’s public image. He declared that the inheritance transfers at Samsung would end, promising that the management rights he inherited from his father would not pass on to his children. He also said that Samsung would stop cracking down on employees’ attempts to organize unions, although labor activists question his sincerity.
It is not clear what his prison sentence would mean for Samsung’s business. Samsung showed no specific signs of trouble when Lee was in prison in 2017 and 2018. Prison sentences have never prevented Korean corporate leaders from passing on their business decisions behind bars.
The Supreme Court earlier this month upheld a 20-year prison sentence for Park for the Samsung case and other bribes and extortion while she was in office from 2013 to 2016.