On the afternoon of the 18th local time, the Seoul High Court of South Korea pronounced a retrial judgment on the bribery case of Lee Jae-yong, vice president of Samsung Electronics, and sentenced Lee Jae-yong to 2 years and 6 months in prison, and Lee Jae-yong was arrested in court. In the four years between his indictment in February 2017 and the retrial pronouncement of the Seoul High Court, Lee Jae-yong, the only son of the late Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kin Hee, has experienced too much.
Sentenced to two and a half years in prison
According to Yonhap News Agency, the court found Lee guilty of bribery by asking then-president Park Geun-hye and his close associate Choi Seo-won (formerly known as Choi Soon-sil) to help him inherit the right to operate and offer bribes of 8.68 billion won (about 51.03 million yuan). In its judgment, the Seoul High Court said Lee "actively paid bribes and implicitly asked the president to use her powers to help him succeed smoothly."
As for the matter of the Samsung Compliance Monitoring Committee, which has attracted much attention from the outside world, the court said that the relevant activities lack effectiveness and should not be used as a reference element for sentencing.
Lee's lawyer said the case was "an abuse of power by the former president to infringe on corporate freedoms and property rights," adding that "the court's decision is regrettable given this nature." ”
The verdict could spell the culmination of a long legal battle Lee faces, deutsche Welle's website said.
Lee Jae-yong, 52, is the vice president of Samsung Electronics and the de facto head of Samsung Group since Lee was admitted to the hospital due to illness in 2014. In February 2017, he was indicted on suspicion of paying bribes to then-president Park Geun-hye and her close associate Choi Seo-won.
In the first instance, Lee Jae-yong was found guilty and sentenced to five years in prison, while he himself insisted on denying misconduct, appealed, and was released after serving a year in prison; the prosecution appealed that the sentence was too light. In February 2018, the Seoul High Court rendered a second-instance judgment, sentencing Lee to 2 1/2 years in prison and four years' probation, and Lee was released in court. A year and a half later, in August 2019, South Korea's Supreme Court remanded the case back to the court of second instance for retrial. In October 2020, the Seoul High Court initiated a retrial. On December 30 of the same year, South Korean prosecutors asked the court to sentence Lee to nine years in prison.
Fang Xiuyu, a professor at Fudan University's Center for North Korea and Korea Studies, pointed out that the time of 2 years and 6 months is expected, with reference to the comprehensive trial of the second instance, the tracking and trial of those involved in the case, and the more cautious judgment of Lee Jae-yong, this sentencing time is reasonable.
Zhan Debin, director of the Korean Peninsula Research Center at shanghai University of International Business and Economics, held a similar view. In his view, the case belongs to the retrial, coupled with external factors such as Lee Jae-yong's good attitude, the retrial will respect and refer to the results of the first and second instance trials.
South Korean media said that Lee's previous sentence was expected to be counted as a sentence, so there were 18 months left in the sentence.
In the future, the verdict against Lee can be appealed to the Supreme Court within 7 days. But experts believe that because the Supreme Court has already made a single decision, the likelihood of overturning the outcome is low.
Samsung may be impacted
Coincidentally, Lee Jae-yong's father, Lee Ken-hee, who single-handedly built the Samsung Empire, has also faced related prosecutions. In 1996, Lee was convicted of bribery and in 2008 he was convicted of tax evasion, but he was eventually pardoned and exempted from serving his sentence in prison.
Unfortunately, Lee doesn't seem to have copied Lee's "good luck." And in South Korea, where chaebol culture is rife, such good fortune is no longer justified: The leader of SK, the country's third-largest conglomerate, was sentenced to prison in 2013-2015 for embezzlement.
Reuters pointed out that Lee's sentencing may affect Samsung's succession process. Since Lee is temporarily unable to participate in Samsung's major decisions, Samsung may lose its most influential manager during the transition period.
"Samsung is at a crossroads," said Park Ju-gun, CEO of research firm Score, "and the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated change, and other third-generation (Korean) business leaders are aggressively moving into new businesses." ”
Lee Jae-yun, an analyst at WonDae Securities, said: "Lee's absence could affect Samsung's major deals in areas it is trying to expand to stay ahead of competitors, such as the acquisition of a struggling chip foundry competitor. ”
Zhan Debin and Fang Xiuyu believe that Lee Jae-yong's sentencing may not have a great impact on Samsung itself, but the absence of the "standard-bearer" is bound to be impacted to a certain extent.
First, this is not the first time that Samsung leaders have faced trials in the courts and procuratorates, in order to cope with this situation, Samsung has made adjustments in operation and management, and during the Park Geun-hye period, it has basically completed lee jae-yong's succession arrangement, so it will not be too affected by Lee Jae-yong's changes; second, it has never been seen that Lee Jae-yong may not stay in prison for too long, and may receive amnesty at a certain period; third, Samsung is a local company in South Korea, and the impact on Samsung is also the impact on the Korean economy, especially in the face of the epidemic. When the economies of various countries are in decline, south Korean politicians may react to it.
For Lee Jae-yong, there are still many challenges: Lee Jae-yong has not yet made a name like his father: In that year, Lee Jianxi established a semiconductor business to create half of the Samsung Empire. In addition, he faces another trial on suspicion of accounting fraud and share price manipulation in connection with a 2015 merger.
Deter The South Korean consortium
Foreign media pointed out that the verdict of the case will not only have an impact on Samsung, but also affect all korean large enterprise chaebols.
For many South Koreans, it wasn't just Lee who appeared in court on Monday, but behind it was a South Korean chaebol system dominated by family businesses. Chaebols have long been considered the main force of South Korea's economy, but they have also been criticized for their excessive power and poor governance.
Moon Jae-in was elected president in 2017 on a reform agenda and vowed to clean up the chaebol, but as the coronavirus pandemic undermines economic growth, South Korea needs to rely on big businesses to provide jobs, and south Korean sentiment seems to be turning in favor of the chaebols. In the face of increasing global competition and innovation pressures, many South Koreans want to see the decisive Lee Jae-yong at the helm of the Samsung Empire.
Zhan Debin pointed out that this case is also a warning to South Korean chaebols that the era of nepotism and power and money trading in the past should end. However, as far as South Korea's chaebol culture is concerned, inertia remains, and this case is difficult to change the inextricable link between chaebols and power.
As for whether Moon Jae-in, who came to power in the name of reform, can make a difference in the future, Fang Xiuyu believes that first of all, Moon Jae-in has only about one year left in power, and due to term restrictions, he is unlikely to take some positive measures thoroughly; second, due to the epidemic, economic and other factors, south Korea's current support for the ruling party is showing an overall downward trend, and if measures are taken against the big chaebols, it may have a more obvious impact on the South Korean economy and be detrimental to its governance. "Although the South Korean government is willing to take measures to alleviate the problem through legal means, this is not only a criminal case handling, but political will is deeply entangled with economic development."
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Column Editor-in-Chief: Yang Liqun Text Editor: Yang Liqun Title Image Source: Xinhua News Agency
Source: Author: Li Xue