South Korea: heir to Samsung escapes detention

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This Tuesday, June 9, Lee Jae-yong, heir to the South Korean giant Samsung escaped his detention required by the prosecution in the investigation into the controversial merger of two subsidiaries of the group.

Publicity

 "  There were not enough reasons  " to justify the arrest of Lee Jae-yong, said in a statement, magistrate Won Jung-sook, after nine hours of hearing. "  Prosecutors appear to have already obtained a considerable amount of evidence during their investigation,  " she said, adding that the trial will establish whether Mr. Lee is behind the illegal acts. The heir to the largest South Korean conglomerate waited for deliberation in a detention center. When he left, around 2:40 a.m. from Monday to Tuesday (5:40 p.m. UT), he quickly thanked the journalists but refused to make any statement about this decision. Mr. Lee then rushed into a black sedan.

A controversial merger

The Seoul public prosecutor's office announced Thursday that it had requested an arrest warrant against Lee Jae-yong, in particular suspected of price manipulation during the controversial merger of two Samsung units, Cheil Industries and C&T, in 2015. This operation, capital for the succession at the head of the group had been denounced by certain shareholders, who believed that C&T had been deliberately undervalued. But the National Pension Fund, large shareholder of Samsung under the supervision of the Ministry of Social Affairs, supported it. Grandson of Samsung founder Lee Jae-Yong became the group's de facto boss after his father's heart attack in 2014.

Mr. Lee was the majority shareholder in Cheil Industries, and the merger defendants say that the heir to Samsung sought to artificially lower the price of C&T in order to give it a larger stake in the new entity born from the merger of the two and that was an important component of the group structure. This would have allowed him to consolidate his grip on the conglomerate.

In a statement last week, the group said   the allegations of price manipulation were " baseless ", adding that Lee was not involved in "  any illegal activity  ". Vice-president of Samsung Electronics, Mr. Lee is also being tried for corruption in the resounding scandal which had led to the dismissal and the conviction of the ex-South Korean president Park Geun-hye. In early May, Lee apologized for the scandals and affairs that plagued the world's largest smartphone maker .

One fifth of South Korea's GDP

The group was founded in 1938 by Lee Jae-yong's grandfather, who promised he would be the last in the line of family succession. He was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison as part of the corruption scandal that had killed Park Geun-hye . The 51-year-old leader was released a year later. But her case is currently the subject of a new trial. The turnover of the Samsung group alone represents one fifth of the GDP of South Korea, the 12th largest economy in the world, hence its considerable political and economic weight.

( with AFP )

Read also: The president of Samsung Electronics in prison for his anti-union maneuvers

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