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The Korea Herald
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THE INVESTOR
March 29, 2024

Samsung

[SAMSUNG CRISIS] Court starts review of arrest warrant for Samsung heir

  • PUBLISHED :January 18, 2017 - 13:53
  • UPDATED :January 18, 2017 - 14:25
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[THE INVESTOR] The Seoul Central District Court will decide on a plea by the prosecution to arrest Samsung Group Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Jan. 18, with the order expected to come late at night.

The Samsung heir appeared in the morning at the office of the special investigation team looking into the recent corruption scandal to participate in the review session. 


Lee Jae-yong appears at the special counsel's office in Seoul on Jan. 18. Chung Hee-jo/The Korea Herald



Lee is accused of bribing the now-impeached President Park Geun-hye and her confidante Choi Soon-sil and embezzling corporate money.

His arrest, if approved by the court, will be unprecedented for a Samsung leader.

Neither of his predecessors -- late Samsung founder, Lee Byung-chul, and current Chairman Lee Kun-hee -- were arrested despite being indicted for creating slush funds.

The Samsung vice chairman has been leading South Korea’s largest conglomerate with annual sales of 300 trillion won (US$257.70 billion) since his father suffered a heart attack in 2014.

The special counsel team probing the corruption case surrounding President Park and Choi had sought an arrest warrant on Jan. 16.

The investigators said in the letter to the court that Samsung had provided a total of 43 billion won, including an 8-billion-won fund to Core Sports, a bogus company run by Choi, and 20.4-billion-won contributions to the Mir and K-sports foundations, affiliated with the president’s crony.

Choi, in return, exerted her influence over government organizations, in particular the National Pension Service which was the then-largest shareholder of Samsung C&T, to back its contentious merger with Cheil Industries in 2015.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)

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