Lee Jae-yong, Warrant Hearing This Morning... 1 Year and 7 Months of Prosecutor Investigation Also on Trial

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, who has been indicted on suspicion of management succession, will face a detention decision on the 8th.

Seoul Central District Court Chief Judge Won Jeong-sook will conduct a pre-trial detention hearing (warrant review) for Vice Chairman Lee, former Vice Chairman Choi Ji-sung, and former President Kim Jong-jung starting at 10:30 a.m. on the same day.

The hearing will involve most of the prosecution investigation team, including Deputy Chief Prosecutor Lee Bok-hyun and Deputy Chief Prosecutor Choi Jae-hoon from the Economic Crime Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, as well as Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-chul from the Uijeongbu District Prosecutors' Office.

Vice Chairman Lee’s side is expected to include about ten participants, including former special investigation prosecutors and lawyers with judicial backgrounds. Former Blue House Senior Secretary for Civil Affairs Choi Jae-kyung, who is Samsung Electronics’ legal advisor, will provide support behind the scenes.

The prosecution intends to prove the charges based on objective evidence and testimonies collected over a 19-month investigation.

Since Vice Chairman Lee has completely denied the charges in two previous summonses, the prosecution is likely to emphasize the risk of evidence destruction by exploiting his position as the group’s head as grounds for detention.

On the other hand, Lee’s side is expected to argue that the prosecution’s request for detention was unfair, especially since they applied for the convening of an external expert 'Prosecution Investigation Review Committee' two days before the warrant was filed.

They are also expected to counter that the accounting fraud allegations related to Samsung BioLogics are not criminally valid, given that financial authorities and courts have shown differing judgments.

Earlier, the Economic Crime Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (led by Chief Prosecutor Lee Bok-hyun) filed detention warrants on the 4th against Vice Chairman Lee and two others on charges of violating the Capital Markets Act and the External Audit Act.

The prosecution believes that during the 2015 merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, the defendants attempted to manipulate the market by calculating a merger ratio favorable to Vice Chairman Lee to facilitate his management succession and committed accounting fraud at Samsung BioLogics to conceal this fact.

Since the prosecution filed the detention warrant for Vice Chairman Lee on the 4th, Samsung has issued statements for three consecutive days (from the 5th to the 7th), launching an all-out defense against allegations that the management succession was illegal.

The day before, along with clarifying the suspicions, Samsung released an appeal stating, "Samsung is in crisis. Please open the way so that management can be normalized and we can devote ourselves to a new leap forward for the Korean economy."

Since there are no separate confidentiality rules at the court where the warrant hearing will be held, Vice Chairman Lee is expected to face the press photo line before attending the hearing.

The decision on whether Vice Chairman Lee will be detained is expected to be announced late in the afternoon or around dawn on the 9th.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.