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Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong (pictured) gave up the re-appeal and the sentence was confirmed, but it is predicted that the procedure for returning to Samsung Electronics after the execution of the sentence will not be simple. This is because businessmen convicted of embezzlement, misappropriation, etc., must obtain re-employment approval from the government. Progressive civic groups have already pressured the government, saying, “We must demand the Samsung Electronics board of directors to dismiss Lee’s dismissal and ban re-employment.”
According to the legal community on the 25th, Vice-Chairman Lee is prohibited from working at Samsung Electronics for five years after completing his sentence in accordance with Article 14 of the Special Economics Act. The approval of the Minister of Justice is required to re-employment.
Article 14 of the Special Police Act prohibits employment in companies that are closely related to convicted criminal acts such as embezzlement or malpractice. Initially, this provision restricted employment to companies that took “benefits” from property due to serious economic crimes such as embezzlement or neglect. For example, this was to prevent the act of attending Company A and committing a crime to benefit Company B, a competitor, and then living in prison and receiving various benefits from Company B and getting a job.
The problem emerged as the Ministry of Justice corrected the relevant enforcement decree (Article 10) in 2019. It includes companies that have caused’damage’ to their property in the subject of employment restrictions. In other words, employment is also restricted to companies operated by the company, which is the de facto’law for prohibiting re-employment of owners’. At the time, contrary to the original purpose of the law, criticism was raised that it violated the constitutional freedom of choice of profession, but the government enforced amendment of the enforcement decree.
This enforcement decree applies from crimes committed after November 8, 2019. Since the court-recognized embezzlement of Vice-Chairman Lee was done prior to the enforcement of the enforcement decree, strictly speaking, the vice-chairman’s own crime does not restrict employment.
However, there is a’gap’ in the law. This is because the existing enforcement ordinance that stipulates’enterprises in which the convicted person’s accomplice was an executive employee’ is applied regardless of the timing of the revised enforcement decree. Vice-Chairman Lee was accused of embezzling 8.6 billion won in the court, but former President Park Sang-jin and former Executive Vice President Hwang Seong-soo were convicted of accomplices. As these executives were convicted, re-employment was restricted to Vice Chairman Lee.
In March of last year, Samyang Foods President Kim Jeong-soo was also put into employment by the Ministry of Justice for this reason. Eventually, President Kim requested the Ministry of Justice to approve employment, and in October last year, the Ministry of Justice approved it and became representative.
Some say that Vice Chairman Lee left the registered director at Samsung Electronics and worked without pay, so it has nothing to do with the restrictions on employment. However, there is also a prospect that, unless Vice-Chairman Lee is reinstated for pardon, he or she must obtain employment approval in some way from the government.
It is observed that the controversy over the unconstitutionality of the enforcement ordinance of the Special Economics Act, which stipulated employment restrictions, will also intensify with the case of Vice Chairman Lee. Choi Jun-seon, an emeritus professor at Sungkyunkwan University Law School, criticized “It is highly unconstitutional for the administration to allow or prohibit management as an enforcement decree without the control of the legislature.”
Professor Choi pointed out, “It is a matter of whether the company will hire criminal warriors, but the state does not need to be involved in this area.”
Reporter Mi-Hyun Cho [email protected]
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