A Seoul appeals court docket on Monday upheld the acquittal of Samsung Electronics Govt Chairman Jay Y. Lee in accounting fraud and inventory manipulation in a case associated to a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung associates, Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T.
The Seoul Excessive Court docket dismissed the prosecution’s enchantment within the case involving Lee, who confronted 19 fees associated to unfair buying and selling and inventory value manipulation beneath the Monetary Funding Companies and Capital Markets Act related to the controversial 2015 merger of the 2 associates. Prosecutors had alleged that the merger was supposed to strengthen his management over South Korea’s greatest electronics big. Additionally, they mentioned Samsung’s merger course of took a toll on the shareholders of Samsung C&T.
The ruling comes one yr after a South Korean decrease court docket acquitted Lee of wrongdoing and practically 4 years and 5 months after Lee was indicted in Septemger 2020.
In September 2020, Lee, then the vice chair of Samsung Electronics, together with different former Samsung executives, have been indicted for advocating the merging of Cheil Industries, Samsung’s textile affiliate, with Samsung C&T, its building unit, to take over the tech big’s administration controls in 2015.
All the former Samsung execs have been additionally discovered not responsible of the accusations by a Seoul appeals court docket on Monday.
Throughout the November 2023 listening to, Lee denied the allegations of misconduct and acknowledged that the merger course of adopted the corporate’s commonplace operational procedures. In November final yr, prosecutors in South Korea requested a five-year jail time period and a 500 million KRW high-quality, roughly $375,000, for Samsung Electronics chief Jay Y. Lee at an appeals court docket.
The choice caps off practically a decade of authorized disputes for Lee, beginning with one in 2015 specializing in a merger that highlighted points with company governance.
“It’s troublesome to say the merger was carried out with out the 2 firms’ consent, because it was determined beneath association and cooperation of Samsung C&T, Cheil Industries and Samsung’s Future Technique Workplace,” the court docket mentioned, refuting the prosecution’s declare that Samsung’s management tower workplace made the merger choice solely.
The prosecutors mentioned that they are going to evaluate the excessive court docket’s choice earlier than deciding whether or not to enchantment the ruling to the Supreme Court docket, based on a media outlet by Yonhap.