Samsung Electronics vice chairman Jay Y. Lee faces a nine-year jail time period within the bribery case that contributed to the downfall of former president Park Guen-hye. Prosecutors argued that the size of the sentence is warranted due to Samsung’s energy as the biggest chaebol, or family-owned conglomerate, in South Korea.
“Samsung is a gaggle with such overwhelming energy that it’s stated Korean corporations are divided into Samsung and non-Samsung,” they stated throughout a ultimate listening to on Wednesday, reviews the Korea Herald. The ultimate ruling is scheduled for January 18.
The bribery case is separate from one other trial Lee is concerned in, over alleged accounting fraud and stock-price manipulation. Hearings in that case started in October.
The bribery case dates again to 2017, when Lee was convicted of bribing Park and her shut affiliate Choi Quickly-sil and sentenced to 5 years in jail. Prosecutors allege the bribes have been meant to safe authorities backing for Lee’s try to inherit management of Samsung from his father Lee Kun-hee, then its chairman. The unlawful funds have been a serious a part of the corruption scandal that led to Park’s impeachment, arrest and 25-year jail sentence.
Lee was freed in 2018 after the sentence was decreased and suspended on attraction, and returned to work as Samsung’s de facto head, a place he took after his father had a coronary heart assault in 2014.
In August 2019, nevertheless, the Supreme Courtroom overturned the appeals courtroom, ruling that it was too lenient, and ordered that the case be retried in Seoul Excessive Courtroom.
The elder Lee, who was reportedly South Korea’s wealthiest citizen, died in October. He was value an estimated $20.7 billion and underneath the nation’s tax system, and his heirs could possibly be accountable for property taxes of about $10 billion, reported Fortune.
TechCrunch has contacted Samsung for remark.