The ruling by the
The court said the prosecution failed to sufficiently prove the merger between
The ruling was criticized by activists, progressive politicians and commentators, who questioned how Lee could be innocent of all charges when he had previously been convicted in the separate case of bribing a former president while seeking government support for the merger. The People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, South Korea’s biggest civic group, said the court failed to display “even a minimal level of social justice” by putting Lee’s interests before those of shareholders and pensioners, whose retirement funds were possibly reduced by the deal, which was endorsed by the
It described the ruling as a setback for years of efforts to reform the management culture of South Korea’s family-owned conglomerates and their cozy ties with the government. South Korean corporate leaders often receive relatively lenient punishments for corruption, business irregularities and other crimes, with judges often citing concerns over the country’s economy.
Prosecutors had sought a five-year jail term for Lee, who was accused of stock price manipulation and accounting fraud. It wasn’t immediately clear whether they would appeal. Lee denied wrongdoing in the current case, describing the 2015 merger as “normal business activity.”
Lee, 55, did not answer questions from reporters as he left the court. You
Lee, a third-generation corporate heir who was officially appointed chairman of
Park and her confidante were also convicted in the scandal, and enraged South Koreans staged massive protests for months demanding an end to shady ties between business and politics. The demonstrations eventually led to Park’s ouster from office.
Lee was released on parole in 2021 and pardoned by South Korean President
Some shareholders had opposed the 2015 merger, saying it unfairly benefited the Lee family while hurting minority shareholders.
There was also public anger over how the national pension fund’s stake in Samsung C&T, the merged entity, fell by an estimated hundreds of millions of dollars after Park pressured the
Prosecutors have argued that Lee and other Samsung officials caused damage to shareholders of Samsung C&T, which was a major construction company, by manipulating corporate assets to engineer a merger that was favorable to Cheil, an amusement park and clothing company where Lee had been the biggest shareholder.
Prosecutors also claimed that Samsung executives, through accounting fraud, inflated the value of
Oh Se Hyung, an official at the Citizens’
“It’s tragic that a wrongful merger and clear accounting irregularities were ruled as not guilty, and you have to question the roles played by the prosecution and the judiciary that led to this,” he said.
Lee has been navigating one of his toughest stretches as the leader of one of the world’s largest makers of computer chips and smartphones, with Russia’s war on
The company last week reported an annual 34% decline in operating profit for October-December quarter as sluggish demands for its TVs and other consumer electronics products offset hard-won gains from a slowly recovering memory chip market.
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