Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong’s retrieval trial for the destruction of bribery cases revealed that the controversial compliance monitoring system was not reflected in the reason for the sentence. This is why there are limitations in effectiveness. Recognizing 8.6 billion won as a bribe, Vice-Chairman Lee was sentenced to two years in prison and imprisoned. It has been 3 years and 8 months since the trial in this case began.
The first criminal division of the Seoul High Court (Deputy Judge Jung Joon-young) sentenced him to two years and six months in prison after acknowledging Lee’s bribery, embezzlement, violation of the Crime Profit Concealment Act, and perjury at a sentencing hearing held on the afternoon of the 18th. Choi Ji-sung, former head of the Future Strategy Office, and former deputy director of the Future Strategy Office, Jang Choong-ki, who lived on the same charges were also sentenced to two years and June in prison.
The court’s judgment of guilt and innocence followed the Supreme Court ruling sentenced in August last year. Accordingly, more than 752 billion won, including salsido, vitana, and rausing, and other services provided to Mr. Choi’s daughter, Jeong Yu-ra, and 1.66 billion won for the service to the Korea Winter Sports Gifted Center were used as bribes Admitted.
The crime of embezzlement was also admitted because Vice-Chairman Lee and others misappropriated Samsung Electronics’ property for bribery. In addition, despite being a bribe, the crime was concealed through normal service transactions, and was convicted of violating the Crime Profit Concealment Act.
In this regard, Vice Chairman Lee testified at a hearing at the National Assembly in December 2016 that he had not received a report of the support for Choi Soon-sil and Jung Yu-ra or that he did not know Choi Soon-sil and Jeong Yu-ra. The crime of perjury continued to be admitted from the first trial to the repatriation trial for destruction.
Former Samsung Electronics President Park Sang-jin and Hwang Seong-soo, former Samsung Electronics executive director, were sentenced to four years of probation in two years of imprisonment and six months of imprisonment.
“It’s a pity to repeat bribery and embezzlement in every regime”
The key to the ruling and repatriation was sentencing. The court said that it referred to the US federal court sentencing standards at the beginning of the trial and that the’effective compliance system’ was reflected in the sentencing standards. At the same time, Vice-Chairman Lee recommended that a new compliance monitoring system be established to fundamentally prevent criminal acts.
The special prosecutor protested that in order to apply the US sentencing standards, it must be a corporate crime and that the compliance system must have operated at the time of the crime. Some of the civil society and academia have also criticized it as’a trick to probate execution’.
In the end, the judge said, “The new compliance system did not meet the criteria for effectiveness,” and that it did not take into account the terms of the sentence. This is why the new system “has not been reached to proactively prevent and monitor new types of risks that may arise in the future, and no method of compliance monitoring has been proposed for the control tower organization.”
The Ministry of Justice also said, “Companies other than the seven affiliates that have signed an agreement with the Compliance Committee have not been able to establish a surveillance system for possible misconduct in the future.” There are aspects that need to be supplemented, such as the need to be managed as such.”
Regarding the sentence, the judge said, “However, Vice-Chairman Lee and others embezzled Samsung Electronics funds for support from former President Park Geun-hye, and all the damages have been recovered. In the statement, he sincerely demonstrated his commitment to compliance management, pledged to change the Samsung subsidiary into a company under strict compliance monitoring and make it a company with the highest level of transparency and morality.”
In the case of the sentence of former Chief Choi and Deputy General Manager Jang, “the two defendants are very guilty in that they planned the whole crime and made substantial decisions,” he said. “Even if the sentence is sentenced to imprisonment, it is unfair to apply the sentence. I synthesized the situation.”
Former President Park and Former Executive Vice President Hwang said, “A crime that actively offered a bribe in response to the president’s request for a bribe is not bad, but given that the two defendants did not plan the crime, the sentence of imprisonment is harsh.”
The judge said, “This case is an extension of bribery and embezzlement that Samsung’s top executives have joined whenever political power changes.” “When the country’s best company and proud global innovator Samsung, It is very regrettable to be involved in crime repeatedly every time.”
Prosecution of’bribery’ 43.3 billion won → 8.9 billion won in the first trial → 3.6 billion won in the second trial → 8.6 billion won in the final
The special prosecutor indicted in February 2017 that Vice Chairman Lee had donated a total of 43.3 billion won worth of bribes to the President. The contribution of 20.4 billion won to the Mir-K Sports Foundation owned by Choi Seo-won was also considered a bribe. In addition, bribery charges were applied to all the 21.3 billion won contracts with Core Sports for horseback riding support. This is because if the 2016 Gukjeong Nongdan incident did not spread, all would be paid. The actual amount paid was about 7.79 billion won. The contract was halted as the case of Choi Gukjeong Nongdan became known.
In August 2017, the first trial court (Judge Kim Jin-dong) sentenced Vice-Chairman Lee to five years in prison, and former Chief Choi and Deputy Chief Jang for four years each. Former President Park was sentenced to three years in prison and five years on probation, and Hwang Jeon received two years in prison and four years on probation.
The first trial court saw a total of 8.9 billion won as bribes. This is the sum of 7,294.27 million won, which is part of Jung Yura’s horseback riding training support, and 1628 billion won given to the gifted center. Among them, embezzlement was applied to 8 billion won, excluding the price of vehicles and horse transport vehicles.
The first trial court convicted Vice-Chairman Lee’s guilty of escaping property abroad. The special prosecutor alleged that Vice-Chairman Lee had illegally moved or concealed the national property of the Republic of Korea by bribing them through various sports service contracts, including horseback riding assistance. The special prosecutor’s office considered the amount of escape to be 7.8 billion won, but the court of the first trial recognized only 3.7 billion won as the amount of escape. When the amount of escape is 5 billion won or more, the statutory sentence is imprisonment for life or 10 years or more.
The sentence has sharply decreased since the second trial sentence on February 5, 2018. The second-trial court (Judge Jeong Hyung-myung) sentenced Vice-Chairman Lee to imprisonment for 2 years and probation for 4 years, and for former chief executive officer Choi, former deputy general manager, and former Samsung Electronics president Park to 2 years imprisonment and 3 years probation. Hwang, former executive director of Samsung Electronics, was sentenced to two years probation in one year and June in prison.
The second trial court admitted that only 3,634 billion won, a part of the horseback riding support, was a bribe. The third-party bribery crime was applied to the gifted center service cost of 1.6 billion won was judged innocent. The judiciary defined this case as a “bribery case that failed to reject the intimidation of the President, Korea’s highest political power,” rather than a political and political conflict. Even the expensive words that were supported by Mr. Jeong were not recognized as bribes, claiming that Samsung has legal ownership.
On August 29, 2019, the Supreme Court revoked the second trial ruling for partial conviction. The first trial was held on October 25th, and it was held for over a year until December 30th last year.
On February 17, 2017, Vice-Chairman Lee, who was arrested during the special prosecution investigation, was released shortly after the second trial. It is the 353th day of arrest. Vice-Chairman Lee is imprisoned for 550 days minus 353 days from the final sentence of two years in prison.
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