![[취재파일] ‘Homework’ opportunity given by the sky, Samsung’s response that was too easy](https://img.sbs.co.kr/newimg/news/20210118/201511960_1280.jpg "[취재파일] ‘Homework’ opportunity given by the sky, Samsung’s response that was too easy")
-January 17, 2020 Lee Jae-yong’s 4th hearing
Judge Jung Joon-young of the 1st Criminal Division of the Seoul High Court, who sent Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong back to jail yesterday (18th), first expressed his intention to consider the Compliance Committee launched by Samsung as a sentence of sentence exactly one year and two days ago. I hit it. The words of the judge, which were absurdly accepted by special prosecutors and liberal civic groups, were an opportunity from heaven to vice chairman Lee Jae-yong. From this day on, the story of a’probation of execution’ in the heart of the judiciary was solidified like a normal rule. Protests by liberal civic groups took place every day around the court, and the special prosecution filed two applications for evasion of the courts because it was difficult to expect results other than probation in the court.
However, the court sentenced Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong for two years and six months of imprisonment yesterday, which is the minimum of the sentence stipulated by the law, but did not give him a probation. The judges wrote in detail the reason why Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong had to be sent back to prison.
●’Effective Compliance Committee’, Samsung does not even lock the first button
Signs that the court was negatively evaluating the essential elements of vice chairman Lee Jae-yong’s probation and the effectiveness of the Samsung Compliance Monitoring Committee were detected in earnest from the end of the trial at the end of last year.
▶ [2021.01.11. 취재파일] One week of Lee Jae-yong’s fate… What is the meaning of the last question the judge asked?
The Ministry of Justice has presented a variety of documents and has emphasized that the core of the effectiveness of the Samsung Compliance Monitoring Committee is’types of possible legal risks’. The importance of this’type of legal risk’ <상장회사준법감시통제 기준> It appears repeatedly in the literature that has been referenced and referred to by the et al. The judiciary also revealed that the’type of legal risk’ was the’first button’ of the compliance committee’s effectiveness evaluation.
Effective compliance monitoring begins with an assessment of legal risk. According to the standard compliance control standards of listed companies, in order to effectively monitor compliance, ① evaluate the legal risk by reviewing the size and frequency of occurrence of legal risk, judging the possibility of violation, and categorizing major legal risk actions. Next (Article 12)…
-Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in the judgment on the revocation and repatriation
However, Samsung did not complete the core task of this’first button’ until the sentence was sentenced. Instead, Samsung replied,’We commissioned BCG, a global consulting firm, to characterize risk, and the results will come out next year.
Even though it has been more than 10 months since the start of the activities in earnest, it seems difficult for the judiciary to understand that the Samsung Compliance Monitoring Committee did not directly do the work that is the core of the effectiveness evaluation and outsourced it, and that the results will only come out next year. If, as Samsung argued, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was a matter that had a profound impact on Samsung’s management as well as the national economy, it should have been different.
● Even the’rest of study’ given by the judges…
It seems that the judiciary tried to give a chance to Samsung, who did not lock the first button. On December 21, last year, in the last preparatory order for clarification, the court asked for the purpose of’if the legal risk that will occur in the future cannot be categorized, explain what measures have been taken to prevent the recurrence of the violation that occurred in the past’.
Samsung has submitted several responses to this. However, when I obtained and read this answer, there were some points that were difficult to understand as a reporter. The court asked for measures to prevent recurrence, citing a crime in which Samsung Electronics executives and employees held the borrowed shares of Chairman Lee Kun-hee. However, Samsung responded with the intention that’it is difficult to recur as no borrowed shares currently exist.’ To the question,’How can I prevent these things from happening in the past?’, I replied,’It is a matter that has already been over in the past.’ The court picked up Samsung’s response in the ruling.
Since the legal risk to be managed is not limited to the existing legal risk, the holding of borrowed shares mobilized by executives and employees should also be viewed as a legal risk to be managed. (…)but, The attorney is insisting that no borrowed shares currently exist, which should be considered in the process of prioritizing by evaluating the likelihood of risks.
-Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in the judgment on the revocation and repatriation
In the case of the suspected illegal merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, which is about to be tried, Samsung has always insisted that it is not the subject of investigation by the Compliance Committee because there is no first trial decision. The court, which has been emphasizing’crime prevention’ throughout the trial process, also said in the ruling that this claim is also difficult to understand.
The part of the Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries merger case that has not initiated an investigation due to the fact that it was a matter before its inauguration or that the court’s first trial decision has not yet been declared lacks convincing power.Do. The nature of compliance monitoring is prevention, not sanctions. Analyzing the history of the company is essential in analyzing legal risks expected to occur in the future and preparing countermeasures for them.This is because it is one of the most typical works.
-Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in the judgment on the revocation and repatriation
The judges handed over the homework, and Samsung either did not do it properly or sometimes made different arguments on the subject of the homework. Samsung was unable to make use of all these opportunities, which had been given several opportunities despite the special prosecutors and civic groups accusing him of’giving too many opportunities to make a judgment to look after’.
● Amnesty that is already raising my head… Let’s start by seeing if we finish’unfinished homework’
Yesterday, when Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was re-imprisoned, a petition from the Blue House to pardon Lee as a special envoy for the March 1st was issued. Business groups issued statements one after another saying,’We are concerned about Samsung’s management gap and the damage to the national economy’. In line with the recent issue of amnesty for former presidents, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s amnesty is likely to be talked about every major national holiday coming back.
But before that, we have to see if Samsung finishes the unfinished homework. We need to see if Samsung continues to maintain and develop the Compliance Committee, which was allocated a huge budget and organization, as it was at the time of its inauguration. In this regard, the judiciary wrote in the ruling that five elements should be supplemented, such as ▲preparation of countermeasures against illegal acts through group control towers such as the Future Strategy Office ▲preparation of measures to prevent illegal acts of other affiliates other than the seven affiliates currently joined to the Compliance Committee. .
Samsung, reborn as a global company, showed off its image in the last trial that took the lead. Is it because the group heads settled with the practice of being probated, or the defense strategy was not sufficiently discussed in the head-centered imperial communication structure, and Samsung’s answers to the questions of the court and special prosecutors were “delicate. ‘Instead,’comfort’ was read, unable to read the changed situation.
This uneasiness exposed in the face of compliance management challenges should not return to Samsung and to our economy again like a boomerang. Sulik is not a theory of sympathy or amnesty, but that is why it is necessary to continuously monitor and criticize the new Samsung Compliance Monitoring System.
(Photo = Yonhap News)