[이재용 법정구속-실형선고 배경은]
Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to 2 years and 6 months in prison and held in court
法 “Insufficient preemptive prevention…Illegal behavior monitoring system needs to be supplemented”
Only 8.6 billion won in bribery… recognized as’implicit solicitation’ to Park Geun-hye
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Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to two years and six months in jail in the case of the Gukjeong Nongdan case and was imprisoned in court. With Lee’s arrest, Samsung again faced a management gap due to the absence of the general manager.
The first criminal division of the Seoul High Court (Judge Jung Joon-young, Song Young-seung, and Kang Sang-wook) sentenced Vice-Chairman Lee, who was charged with bribery and other charges, to two years and six months in prison and arrested in court. The judge said, “The defendant actively offered bribes in response to former President Park Geun-hye’s request for bribery. Although implicit, he made a fraudulent solicitation to help with the succession process.” He ruled. The judiciary admitted that the bribes paid by Vice-Chairman Lee to former President Park and Seo-won Choi (previously renamed Choi Soon-sil) were 8.6 billion won. Earlier, the first trial judged the amount of bribery as 8.9 billion won, admitted to imprisonment for five years, and the second trial as a bribe of 3.6 billion won, and sentenced to two years and six months in prison and four years probation. Afterwards, the Supreme Court decided that 8.6 billion won was a bribe and destroyed the case.
In this ruling, the operation of the Samsung Compliance Committee was not considered as a sentencing factor. The judge ruled that “unless the new compliance system does not meet the criteria for its effectiveness, it is not appropriate to consider it as a condition of sentencing.”
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━ Jaeyong Lee, real hyung… The background is |
The background of the Seoul High Court’s sentence of two years and six months in prison for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong at the repatriation hearing held on the 18th is a judgment that the activities of the Samsung Group Compliance Committee have not yet guaranteed the effectiveness. have. The judiciary acknowledged the sincerity, as Samsung Group established the Compliance Committee and Vice Chairman Lee sincerely reflected in the final statement. However, it did not consider it as a’sentence condition’ for the reason that’effectiveness was not guaranteed’. The judge said,’It reflects the effectiveness of the Samsung Compliance Committee in sentencing’, but did not reflect it as a reason for reduction in the final judgment. On the other hand, after acknowledging major charges such as solicitation and bribery, Vice-Chairman Lee was finally arrested again after 35 months.
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━ Sincerity, No Effectiveness Compliance Committee |
On this day, the attention of the legal community before the sentence of remand and remand of destruction was directed to the Samsung Compliance Committee. This is because the judiciary said that the compliance committee, which was launched in January of last year,’will reflect the actual operation or not in the sentencing of Vice Chairman Lee’. After the first trial, the effectiveness of the Compliance Committee was positioned at the center of the battles of both sides. When Special Prosecutor Park Young-soo, who rebelled against the decision of the court, requested to evade the court, the defense was suspended for about seven months.
The court admitted the sincerity of the willingness to comply with the defendants, including Samsung Group and Vice Chairman Lee. However, in the actual sentencing, it did not take into account the terms of sentencing, disagreeing whether the compliance committee would have a practical effect.
The judiciary said, “It is difficult to say that the effectiveness criteria have been met,” and “There is no specific way to monitor the compliance of the organization acting as a control tower in the Samsung Group. “The behavior monitoring system has not been established.” “Samsung Compliance Committee is conducting routine compliance monitoring activities and compliance monitoring activities for the types of illegal acts that have been a problem in this case.” “It seems that it is not able to preemptively monitor new behaviors that may occur in the future.” Said. It is the conclusion of the judiciary that it is not appropriate to consider it as a condition of sentencing unless it meets the criteria for effectiveness. In order to evaluate the activities of the Compliance Committee, the judiciary appoints three professional judges to prepare an activity evaluation report, and has disclosed it.
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━ Only 8.6 billion won Recognition of implied solicitation |
◇ Only 8.6 billion won in bribery… Recognition of implied solicitation = Eventually, Vice-Chairman Lee became the body of English again as the court recognized 8.6 billion won as a 100% bribe. The judge explained, “Neither the defendant nor the special prosecutor contends with the judgment of conviction for remand or remand of destruction.” In October 2019, the Supreme Court’s entire consensus broke the verdict and returned the case to the Seoul High Court, claiming that about 5 billion won was recognized as guilty at the appeal trial.
In addition, the court judged that bribery and embezzlement as well as concealment of crimes and perjury to the National Assembly were serious. The judge said, “The defendant (Vice Chairman Lee) actively offered bribes in response to former President Park Geun-hye’s request for bribery, and made an implicit request to use the president’s authority for succession work.” “Signed a false service contract. Considering that the crime was concealed and perjured by the National Assembly, imprisonment and imprisonment in court are inevitable.” However, he said, “It is very unfortunate that Samsung, a leading company and global innovator, is repeatedly involved in crime whenever political power changes.”
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━ Reasons for reduction such as difficulty in rejecting presidential demand |
The court sentenced Vice-Chairman Lee to a sentence of two years and six months in prison on that day. Among the charges applied to Vice-Chairman Lee, the court sentence was the highest for embezzlement, which amounted to 8.6 billion won. In this case, imprisonment for more than 5 years is possible in accordance with the Specific Economic Crimes Weighted Penalty Act. However, taking into account the fact that Vice Chairman Lee returned the entire amount recognized as embezzlement and the fact that it was very difficult in reality to reject the president’s request, the court sentenced him to half of the sentence for two years and six months. The fact that Vice Chairman Lee was the first offender and showed reflection in the final statement also served as reasons for the reduction. In accordance with Article 53 of the Criminal Code (reduction of the amount of work), the sentence was reduced to half.
An attorney who was a former prosecutor said, “The reason that the vice-chairman was sentenced to two years and six months, which is significantly less than the minimum sentence of five years under the Special Act, was due to the reduction in the amount of crops. Part”. He added, “The reason that the sentence between the same government-run Nongdan case or the sentence between Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin and Vice-Chairman Lee is the aggressiveness of bribery,” he said. “While Lotte made contributions under pressure, Samsung sided He added that the sentence may have changed, such as having a probation on one side and a sentence of imprisonment on the other because of direct access to Choi Soon-sil).
Meanwhile, as Vice-Chairman Lee was arrested in court on the same day, there are growing concerns that Samsung’s large-scale investments and M&A could be disrupted due to a vacancy in the head and the lack of leadership. Considering that Samsung Electronics accounts for 24% of KOSPI’s total market capitalization and Samsung Group’s sales account for 16% of GDP, the impact on the Korean economy is likely to be significant.
The National Federation of Entrepreneurs said in a statement that day, “Vice-Chairman Lee led bold investment and job creation amid the coronavirus economic crisis, and helped support the Korean economy.” Samsung is in shock. Samsung, which had expected a probation of execution by faithfully complying with the court’s request for the establishment of a compliance committee, could not hide its sorrowful feelings at the result of the sentence.
/ Lee Hee-jo, Ahn Hyun-deok, and actor Byeon-yeon [email protected]
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