Jay Y. Lee, Samsung Group’s de facto leader, was caught into an influence-peddling scandal that has transfixed South Korea, involving the highest rank of politics and business.
Key Points
This situation took a huge turn when a South Korean court accepted Jay Y. Lee’s arrest on allegations of bribery and embezzlement.
This is a huge surprise, especially for a person who is on top of the country’s most powerful corporation. So, this decision raises some important questions.
The first one is: Why is Samsung caught in the presidential investigation?
Samsung is accused of playing an important role in a scandal that has already led to the impeachment of the country’s President Park Geun-hye.
First, lawmakers started to question the heads of approximately nine Korean companies to find out whether they gave money to foundations controlled by Park Geun-hye’s friend, Choi Soon-sil, in exchange for political favors.
This investigation managed to unveil that Samsung gave a horse valued at approximately 1 billion won to Choi’s daughter. In dollars, we are talking about 850.000 dollars.
So, why should this company give this amount of money?
Jay Y. Lee admitted in his testimony that Samsung gave this sum of money, but he also declared that the company had done nothing wrong. He said that Korean companies are often asked to donate money to support sporting and charity events.
The prosecutor managed to win approval on the second attempt for an arrest warrant on allegations of embezzlement and bribery for the name of Jay Y. Lee.
All this time, Samsung has consistently denied that it ever offered bribes.
We will do our best to ensure that the truth is revealed in future court proceedings,” the company declared in a statement after the court’s ruling.
On the other side, the special prosecutor declared that Samsung made these payments in purpose to win government support for Lee’s wishes to take over management controls from his father.
More specifically, the company wanted to merge two of its affiliated companies to give Lee greater control over Samsung Electronics Co.
As we know, Samsung is known as the world’s largest maker of smartphones and the crown jewel of South Korea.
The national economy is important, but upholding justice is more important,” has declared Lee Kyu-chul, spokesmen for the independent counsel investigating the case.
We must also add that three other senior Samsung officials, alongside with the president of the flagship Samsung Electronics, were placed under investigation. However, it is important to know that they were not been sought for arrest.
Unfortunately, Samsung was also suspected of having agreed to an 18 million dollars contract with a Germany-based consulting firm owned by Choi.
The special prosecutors declared that they had “objective, physical evidence” showing that Choi had been sharing profits with the President of South Korea. So, this means that paying bribes to Choi is approximately the same thing as paying bribes to President of South Korea, Park Geun-hye.
The independent counsel considers this money a bribe related to Lee’s succession within Samsung,” has declared the spokesman for the independent counsel.
