Samsung billionaire Jay Y. Lee cleared of all charges in significant legal victory
Samsung Electronics Co. Executive Chairman Jay Y. Lee won a court decision clearing him of charges of fraud and stock-rigging, allowing the head of Korea’s most influential firm to focus on turning around a struggling electronics business.
The Seoul High Court on Monday upheld an earlier decision clearing Lee, which prosecutors appealed last November. In the original ruling, lower court judges declared that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Samsung or Lee had misled shareholders.
Monday’s decision marks a major victory for Samsung, helping dispel much of the uncertainty dogging the billionaire heir to the world’s largest electronics empire. While the prosecution can appeal the latest decision at the Supreme Court, legal experts view such an effort unlikely to succeed given the nation’s highest court won’t be hearing new arguments.
“It has been a very long time in the investigation and trial of this case,” Kim You Jin, a lawyer representing Samsung, said in a statement. “We hope that with this verdict, the defendants can now focus on their work.”
Lee has battled allegations of graft in court since around 2017. South Korean prosecutors first indicted Lee that year on charges of corruption, alleging that Samsung provided horses and other payments to a confidante of the former president to win support for his succession. The case inflamed opinion against the country’s powerful conglomerates, or chaebol, and triggered the impeachment of then-President Park Geun-hye.
He was eventually pardoned. The separate case in Monday’s ruling involved a controversial merger between two of Samsung Group’s units in 2015. Prosecutors accused Lee of manipulating that deal for improper benefit.
With the high court’s affirmation, the executive is now free to focus on turning around a conglomerate that’s ceding share in key markets.
Suwon-based Samsung has fallen behind archrival SK Hynix Inc. in making the best memory chips for artificial intelligence, hampering its chipmaking profit and posing questions about long-term growth. At the same time, the Trump administration’s aggressive moves on tariffs threatens to up-end global electronics supply chains, ratcheting up uncertainty over Samsung’s mobile and consumer businesses.
Lee, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, had faced a five-year prison sentence along with a 500 million won ($341,000) fine before Monday’s decision.
In his final argument in November, he pleaded for a chance to lead Samsung at a time of heightened geopolitical risks and technological disruption.
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