The Seoul High Court rules on Monday, January 18 in the retrial for corruption of the heir of Samsung, leading to a possible sentence of several years of detention which would deprive the South Korean giant of its main decision-maker.
Officially, Lee Jae-yong is vice president of Samsung Electronics, the world's leading manufacturer of smartphones and memory chips.
But in fact, he is the one who has taken up the torch at the head of the conglomerate since his father Lee Kun-hee, the architect of the group's global take-off, stepped back due to health problems.
The patriarch finally passed away in October.
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Samsung is by far the largest of the “chaebols”, those family-run industrial empires that dominate the world's 12th largest economy.
Its overall turnover represents one fifth of South Korea's GDP, and is therefore crucial to the country's economic health.
But Lee Jae-yong was sentenced in 2017 to five years in prison for corruption, embezzlement and other offenses related to the resounding corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of South Korean President Park Geun-hye (2013- 2017), then his incarceration.
On appeal, most of the corruption charges were dismissed and Lee Jae-yong received a suspended prison sentence.
But the Supreme Court then ordered a new trial.
Rare excuses
The case involves millions of dollars the group had paid to the president's shadow confidante, Choi Soon-sil.
Bribes which were according to the prosecution intended to facilitate the transfer of power to the head of the conglomerate, while Lee Kun-hee was bedridden after a heart attack in 2014. The Supreme Court finally confirmed Thursday the conviction of ex-President Park to twenty years in prison.
This scandal had once again underlined the troubled connections between the South Korean power and the great families who control the “chaebols”, these conglomerates at the origin of the prodigious recovery of the country after the Korean War.
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In May 2020, the heir made a rare apology to the media, especially for the controversial succession process that allows him to take the lead of the group founded by his grandfather Lee Byung-chull.
Lee Jae-yong even promised that he would be the last in the family line of succession, and that his children would not inherit it.
His father and grandfather were also in trouble with the law, but neither served a prison sentence.
For its part, Samsung Electronics announced ten days ago that it was anticipating a 25% jump in operating profit in the fourth quarter, boosted by the very strong demand for chips induced by the rise of teleworking in the context of the pandemic. .
