Hello and welcome to the details of S. Korean court acquits Samsung chief over 2015 merger case, says report and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong (centre) arrives to court for his ruling on the controversial 2015 merger case, at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul on February 5, 2024. — AFP pic
SEOUL, Feb 5 — A South Korean court today acquitted Samsung Electronics chief Lee Jae-yong of a raft of crimes linked to a controversial 2015 merger, the Yonhap news agency reported.
Yonhap reported that the court said that they did “not recognise intention to harm shareholders”, through the merger, which critics had claimed was bad value and done mostly to ensure a smooth third-generational power transfer to Lee, a scion of Samsung’s founding family.
“Solidifying Lee’s control and ensuring his succession wasn’t the only purpose of the merger,” the court ruled, according to the Yonhap report, adding that there were “no validations to prove prosecution’s charge”.
Advertisement
The verdict from the Seoul Central District Court clears Lee of several charges including stock price rigging, breach of trust and accounting fraud in the 2015 merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.
Critics argue that the 2015 takeover deliberately undervalued the construction firm’s stock price, unfairly affecting its shareholders.
Lee, who has already served jail time over a high-level fraud and embezzlement case, is the current executive chairman of Samsung Electronics, the crown jewel of the sprawling Samsung group.
Advertisement
In the deal, three C&T shares were offered for one Cheil share, a transaction prosecutors claimed had “undermined the fundamentals of the market”, according to an earlier Yonhap report.
In the merger process “multiple illegal acts were mobilised... for the smooth succession of the group chief”, the prosecution said in its closing argument in November, demanding a five-year sentence.
“A structure in which company’s owner groups are allowed to pursue personal interest is the biggest cause of the worsening Korea discount,” the prosecution said, referring to the perceived global undervaluing of South Korean businesses.
“We feel utterly distressed it was done by Samsung, the country’s number-one company.”
No ‘personal interest’
Lee said in court that he had not been driven by “personal interest in the merger”.
“I swear I had never imagined increasing my stake at the expense of causing damage to other shareholders,” he was reported by Yonhap as saying in his closing argument.
The verdict comes almost three years after the first court hearing in the case, with more than 100 hearings being held since.
Lee spent 18 months in jail after a fraud and embezzlement conviction that followed a sweeping investigation that also brought down former president Park Geun-hye in 2017.
Lee was released on parole in August 2021, having served half his sentence.
He returned to management shortly after release and was officially named executive chairman of Samsung Electronics in October 2022, two months after South Korea’s president pardoned him for the embezzlement and corruption convictions. — AFP
These were the details of the news S. Korean court acquits Samsung chief over 2015 merger case, says report for this day. We hope that we have succeeded by giving you the full details and information. To follow all our news, you can subscribe to the alerts system or to one of our different systems to provide you with all that is new.
It is also worth noting that the original news has been published and is available at Malay Mail and the editorial team at AlKhaleej Today has confirmed it and it has been modified, and it may have been completely transferred or quoted from it and you can read and follow this news from its main source.