Lee Jae-yong Faces 'Court's Time' Once Again... Trial Panel Assignment Tomorrow

Following the National Agricultural Scandal, Years More in Court Expected
Complex Issues Surrounding Samsung Merger Allegations Signal Prolonged Legal Battle
133-Page Indictment... Months Needed Just to Review Records

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, indicted on suspicion of merger and succession irregularities / Photo by Jang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seongpil Cho] Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong is once again facing the court over the 'Samsung merger and succession allegations.' Lee has already been on trial as a defendant in the state power abuse case for 3 years and 6 months. With the start of a new legal battle, the time he must spend in court is expected to continue for several more years.

The Economic Crime Criminal Division of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Lee Bok-hyun) indicted Vice Chairman Lee on the afternoon of the 1st without detention on charges including unfair trading and price manipulation under the Capital Markets Act, and breach of fiduciary duty. This comes 1 year and 9 months after the Securities and Futures Commission reported Samsung Biologics to the prosecution for accounting fraud on November 20, 2018.

To maintain the prosecution in this case, the prosecution established a Special Trial Team 2 at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, led by Deputy Chief Prosecutor Kim Young-chul, who participated in the investigation. Lee Bok-hyun, who is moving to the Criminal Division 3 Chief at the Daejeon District Prosecutors' Office, also plans to be involved in the trial. Vice Chairman Lee is also expected to form a large defense team to mount his defense.

Due to the complexity of the charges and the sharply opposing positions of the prosecution and Lee's side, a prolonged legal battle seems inevitable. The prosecution believes that illegal acts such as price manipulation, unfair trading, and accounting fraud were committed at the Samsung Group level to secure Lee's management succession and control rights. On the other hand, Samsung's side claims that there were no illegal acts as alleged by the prosecution and that Lee was not informed of such facts.

Seoul Central District Court / Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

The Seoul Central District Court, which received the case, plans to randomly assign the case through a computerized system on the 2nd after excluding some trial divisions considering their current workload among the economic crime specialized trial divisions. The Seoul Central District Court has four economic crime specialized trial divisions: Criminal Division 24 (Chief Judge So Byung-seok), Criminal Division 25 (Chief Judges Kwon Seong-su, Im Jeong-yeop, Kim Seon-hee), Criminal Division 34 (Chief Judge Heo Seon-ah), and Criminal Division 35 (Chief Judge Park Nam-cheon).

Depending on the situation, this case may proceed concurrently with the retrial of the state power abuse case. Both cases were investigated and prosecuted against the backdrop of Lee's management succession. The retrial is currently indefinitely stalled because the special prosecutor team led by Park Young-soo has filed a motion to disqualify the trial division, citing bias.

A senior prosecution official said, "'Samsung merger and succession allegations' case will continue for years up to the Supreme Court." The indictment against Lee and 11 Samsung officials filed by the prosecution on this day is 133 pages long. The investigation records amount to 200,000 pages, and the number of people involved in the investigation is about 300. The seized digital data amounts to 22.7 million items (23.7TB). The legal community expects that reviewing the records alone will take several months.

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