SEOUL — President Yoon Seok-yeol on Friday pardoned Samsung conglomerate de facto head Lee Jae-young, who was serving time after being convicted of bribing one of Yoon’s predecessors. Gave.
Lee was released on parole in August last year. This pardon left him free to run Samsung. That’s because the five-year barring him from returning to management has come to an end. However, many South Korean business analysts believe that Lee continued to rule the empire through his loyal subordinates, something Samsung has never explicitly confirmed.
Lee was one of about 1,700 people pardoned by Yoon on Friday, most of whom were convicted of white-collar crime and traffic violations. South Korean presidents often issue large-scale pardons to mark major holidays such as Liberation Day, which falls on Monday when the pardon goes into effect.
“I hope this special amnesty will be an opportunity for the people to work together to overcome the economic crisis,” Yoon said at a cabinet meeting on Friday. He said many small business owners have been pardoned.
Samsung is the most successful of the handful of family-run conglomerates known as Chaebol that have helped make South Korea a global export powerhouse and still dominate its economy. The company’s Samsung Electronics division alone accounts for nearly one-sixth of the country’s total exports.
Lee, also known as Jay Y. Lee, was convicted of bribing then-President Park Geun-hye to gain government support for the merger of two Samsung subsidiaries. Park was impeached on bribery and other corruption charges in 2016 and eventually threw himself into prison before being pardoned and released in December.
Lee was in the middle of a two-and-a-half-year sentence when he was released on parole last year. Another big name, Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong Bin. He was given a suspended prison sentence for charges related to Park and was pardoned on Friday by Yoon, who promised a business-friendly government as a presidential candidate earlier this year.
A former prosecutor, Yoon was a key member of the investigative team that led to the convictions of Lee and Shin.
South Korea has a long history of chaebol leaders being convicted of corruption-related crimes and later receiving presidential pardons. Usually because the country needs it. Anti-corruption activists have long argued that such an amnesty would help entrench corruption in South Korean politics.
Opposition lawmaker Park Yong-jin said Friday that Yoon confirmed the widely held belief that the rich are free, but the poor are guilty.
However, the business community has vigorously lobbied for such an amnesty, arguing that the economy would benefit if the zaibatsu leaders were allowed to run their empires freely. Recent polls show that a majority of South Koreans support Lee’s pardon. Yoon’s approval ratings have dipped below his 30% for the past few days, an unprecedented slump for a South Korean leader since his inauguration.
Lee, whose title is vice chairman, started running South Korea’s largest and most profitable conglomerate in 2014. At that time, his father, Lee Kun-hee, chairman of Samsung, was incapacitated by a heart attack. Elder Mr. Lee passed away in 2020.
“We are truly grateful for this opportunity to make a fresh start,” Lee said in a statement issued through Samsung on Friday. “We will contribute to the economy through continued investment and youth job creation, and meet the expectations of the public and the thoughtful consideration of the government.”
South Korea faces growing economic and national security uncertainties, including the war in Ukraine, rising tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan, and the growing North Korean nuclear threat.
South Korean news outlets say the pardon could help Lee succeed his late father as Samsung chairman and become more proactive in addressing challenges facing the company. rice field. Partly due to the Covid pandemic.
Samsung, the world leader in the semiconductor industry, is pressuring South Korea to join the U.S.-led semiconductor supply chain alliance, while also dealing with increasing competition from China, which is aggressively investing in its own semiconductor industry. There must be.
Mr. Lee’s legal troubles are not over. He faces separate charges of stock manipulation and fraudulent trading. Lee says he is innocent.
