Building 'Justification' Through Two Months of Opinion Gathering... Prosecutors May Bypass the Investigation Deliberation Committee

Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong Likely to Be Indicted Without Detention... Trial Outcome Expected to Intensify Controversy

[Asia Economy Reporter Baek Kyunghwan] The prosecution's decision to proceed with a 'non-detention indictment' against Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong has sparked strong criticism both inside and outside the prosecution. After nearly two years of investigating allegations of illegal succession of Samsung's management rights, the prosecution is highly likely to ignore the recommendation of the Prosecution Investigation Deliberation Committee (Investigation Deliberation Committee) to suspend the investigation and not indict, and instead continue the investigation and decide to indict.

Above all, this case marks the prosecution breaking its own precedent of accepting the Investigation Deliberation Committee's recommendations, which had been repeated eight times so far. At the June meeting, the Investigation Deliberation Committee overwhelmingly decided by a vote of '10 to 3' to recommend suspension of the investigation and non-indictment against Vice Chairman Lee and non-indictment for current and former executives. Ignoring this is expected to make it difficult to avoid criticism from both inside and outside the prosecution.

The Investigation Deliberation Committee is a system voluntarily introduced by the prosecution in 2018 to ensure transparency and fairness in investigations. Shortly after the application to convene the committee, the prosecution filed a detention warrant for Vice Chairman Lee in a countermeasure, but the warrant was dismissed by the court, leading to criticism of 'poor and biased investigation.'

Calling professors and experts in business administration and accounting over the past two months to gather opinions on the investigation has also been controversial. Although the intention was to listen to external opinions after consecutive setbacks from the warrant dismissal and the committee's recommendation, it was immediately analyzed as a procedure to build justification for the disposition.

Professor Lee Byung-tae of KAIST Business School, who revealed that he refused the prosecution's advisory request, publicly criticized, saying, "The prosecution is calling professors who wrote or presented articles stating that the Samsung BioLogics incident was not accounting fraud," and "From what I hear, it is not about listening to opinions but about questioning why they gave such opinions for Samsung, detaining them all day."

The biggest issue in the upcoming trial of Vice Chairman Lee will be the suspicion of accounting fraud involving about 4.5 trillion won related to Samsung BioLogics. Regarding this, the prosecution's position is that the value of shares on the financial statements was inflated, favoring the merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, but many experts agree with Samsung's view that it complies with international accounting standards.

Meanwhile, if Vice Chairman Lee's indictment is finalized and classified as an economic case, it is expected to be assigned to one of the Seoul Central District Court's Criminal Divisions 24, 25, 34, or 35. All are specialized economic crime trial divisions, handling cases such as the Inbosa KJ ingredient manipulation suspicion (Division 24), Professor Jeong Gyeong-shim's children's admission fraud and private equity fund suspicions (Division 25), the large-scale redemption suspension incident of Optimus Asset Management (Division 34), and former Chief Justice Yang Seung-tae's abuse of judicial administrative power (Division 35).

Deputy Chief Prosecutor Lee Bok-hyun of the Economic Crime Criminal Division, who was in charge of this investigation, will move to the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office as of the 3rd. Earlier on the 27th of last month, the Ministry of Justice announced a prosecution reorganization plan establishing the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office Special Trial Team 2 (led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-cheol). Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kim, who has participated in the Samsung BioLogics investigation, will lead the prosecution of Vice Chairman Lee and others.

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