Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of South Korea’s most successful business group, was sentenced Friday to five years prison for offering bribes and other crimes.
SEOUL, South Korea — Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, the de facto leader of South Korea’s most successful business group, was sentenced Friday to five years prison for offering bribes and other crimes.
Lee, 49, was groomed to lead the conglomerate that was founded by his grandfather and became such a dominating force in South Korea that it’s mockingly called “Republic of Samsung” by the public.
He took a higher profile role at the world’s largest maker of smartphones, television sets and microchips that power consumer electronics after his father suffered a heart attack in 2014 and was poised to cement control. Instead, at the end of last year Lee was implicated in a massive political scandal that culminated in President Park Geun-hye’s ouster.
The court said he was guilty of offering bribes to the former president and her close friend Choi Soon-sil to facilitate a smooth handover of power at Samsung, which is a publicly traded company. Park and Choi are also on trial. A Samsung lawyer said the guilty verdict would be appealed.
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HAS LEE LOST HIS HOLD ON SAMSUNG?
It’s almost a rite of passage for the bosses of family-controlled South Korean conglomerates known as chaebol to go to prison for white collar crimes only to later make a comeback. Some were pardoned and others got sentences reduced on appeal.
Lee’s own father was twice convicted for tax evasion but received a special presidential pardon so he could help South Korea win its bid to host the Winter Olympics for the first time.
But the princeling’s case may be different because the public is increasingly unwilling to indulge the double standards long enjoyed by families who were lionized a generation ago for helping to turn South Korea into a manufacturing powerhouse.
The ousted Park’s replacement as president, Moon Jae-in, was elected on hopes his administration would end cozy ties between government and business and end the emperor-like rule of chaebol families.
“It’s an entirely different world now, ” said Park Sang-in, a professor at Seoul National University. “The public’s perception of the problems at chaebol and the need to reform chaebol has significantly changed.”
Perceptions of Lee’s business competency have also been damaged by the trial.
