Are you out of judicial risk, will you be jailed again… Today Jaeyong Lee’Day of Destiny’

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s sentence for destruction of bribery, etc. will be held at 2:05 pm on the 18th. It has been 1468 days since Vice-Chairman Lee was first summoned as a suspect by a special prosecution on January 12, 2017.

For Vice Chairman Lee and Samsung, it is a’day of destiny’ that marks a period in the judicial risk that has continued over the past four years and decides whether it will become a foothold to leap forward to the’new Samsung’ or get caught again.

Vice-Chairman Lee is under suspicion of bribing former President Park Geun-hye and Choi Seo-won (previously renamed Choi Soon-sil) for help with the succession of the group’s management rights. In the revocation court of destruction, only the sentence is considered without judgment on guilt or innocence. Park Young-soo’s special prosecutors’ team has sought 9 years in prison for Vice Chairman Lee.

Previously, in 2017, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was sentenced to five years in prison at the first trial, but in 2018 at the appeal trial, he was sentenced to four years of probation and released in June of two years. However, in August 2019, the Supreme Court returned the case to the Seoul High Court with the intention that the bribery amount should be considered at 8,7 billion won. The amount of embezzlement amounted to 8,7 billion won in that the source of the bribe is money.

For specific economic crimes, if the amount of embezzlement exceeds 5 billion won, it is stipulated to be punished by life imprisonment or imprisonment for more than 5 years. If he is sentenced to more than three years in prison, he cannot receive a probation, so in principle, Vice Chairman Lee is inevitable to be sentenced to imprisonment.

On the 14th, the third division of the Supreme Court (Presidential Judge Roh Tae-ak) convicted former President Park of receiving billions of billions of bribes from large corporations such as Samsung, and convicted him of 20 years in prison. As former President Park, who received a bribe from inside and outside the legal profession, was sentenced to heavy punishment, there are observations that it would be difficult for Vice-Chairman Lee, who provided it, to avoid the imprisonment.

The variable is the’Samsung Compliance Committee (Compliance Monitoring Committee)’. The first criminal division of the Seoul High Court (Deputy Judge Yang Joon-young) said at the first trial in 2019 that it would reflect the effectiveness of the Compliance Committee in the sentence. If the judiciary reflects the Compliance Committee as the reason for the reduction, the sentence can be cut by half through’crop reduction’.

If the Destruction Recall Tribunal sentenced Vice-Chairman Lee to within 6 years of imprisonment and applied a reduction in the amount of grain, the sentence could be reduced to 3 years or less and probation of execution could be obtained. In this case, Vice Chairman Lee will be able to take full-scale management activities free of the judicial risks he has posed for over four years.

As Vice-Chairman Lee, he is laying the groundwork for speeding up the creation of’New Samsung’. In the industry, Vice Chairman Lee is expected to make a wide range of steps in various fields, including artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, and smartphones, as well as electric fields (automotive electronics) and bio. In particular, it is expected to focus on securing talent.

After Vice Chairman Lee returned to the front line of management in February 2018, freed from arrest for about a year, the first step was to secure talent. He visited Europe, the United States, and Canada to recruit AI scholars and contacted the management of representative mobile telecommunication companies in these regions.

The semiconductor’territorial expansion’ is also expected to gain momentum. Samsung Electronics is the world’s best in memory semiconductors, but its position is relatively inferior in the system semiconductor field led by Taiwan’s TSMC. Vice-Chairman Lee announced a plan to “invest 133 trillion won by 2030 to achieve the world’s number one system semiconductor”. “Let’s make a myth in system semiconductors,” said Vice Chairman Lee, who started his first management move at the semiconductor business site for two consecutive years last year and this year.

In the worst case, Vice-Chairman Lee will be jailed again 1079 days after February 2018, when he was released on probation. Assets of 414 trillion won (as of 2019, Fair Trade Commission) Korea’s No. 1 conglomerate will once again suffer from the bad news of’the absence of total number’.

Samsung and the business community are in a critical period when Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee died in October of last year, and he had to demonstrate his management skills on his own, and if Lee was re-incarcerated, it could disrupt future competitiveness and growth engines in the global market. Of concern.

Right now, the system semiconductor business led by Vice Chairman Lee may be creaked from an investment of 133 trillion won. In the absence of an owner, it is difficult for a professional manager to make an investment while taking a deficit. In the industry, businesses that are fiercely competing for global No. 1 such as smartphones, bios, and home appliances are expected to lose power.

Large corporations, SMEs, and venture businesses are worried that if Lee was arrested, it could have a negative impact on the national economy as well as Samsung.

On the 15th, Chairman Park Yong-man submitted a petition to the judiciary wishing for an election to Vice Chairman Lee. Chairman Park said, “When I think of the weight Samsung has on our society, I submitted a petition in the hopes of giving him a chance. I thought that the role of Vice Chairman Lee was necessary for the national economy struggling with Corona 19.” This is the first time that Chairman Park has filed a petition for an entrepreneur as chairman of the Korea Award.

Ahn Kun-joon, president of the Venture Business Association and Kim Ki-moon, chairman of the Small and Medium Business Administration, also filed petitions with the court asking for the election of vice chairman Lee. In his petition, Chairman Kim said, “Samsung has supported the establishment of SME training centers and investments in information technology since the late Chairman Lee Kun-hee. He emphasized, “We have been working exemplary in building relationships.”

Reporters Park Hyung-su and Choi Hyun-ju [email protected]