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Samsung Electronics’ (OTCPK:SSNLF) Government Chairman Jay Y. Lee denied wrongdoing after South Korean prosecutors referred to as for Lee to be jailed for 5 years on allegations of accounting fraud C associated to an $8B merger of Samsung associates in 2015, Reuters reported.
The listening to is the ultimate decrease courtroom session earlier than a ruling, which is scheduled for Jan. 26. The trial that has lasted three years, the report added.
The case towards Lee, who was pardoned for a separate conviction final 12 months, is the final towards him. Lee was beforehand convicted of bribing former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and was sentenced to jail. Nonetheless, he was launched on parole in August 2021 and a few 12 months later, in 2022, President Yoon Suk Yeol pardoned Lee.
Throughout Friday’s listening to at Seoul Central District Courtroom, prosecutors alleged that Lee and different former executives of violating the Capital Markets Act to make the 2015 merger potential which helped him assume larger management of the group’s flagship Samsung Electronics.
Prosecutors have requested for Lee to be imprisoned for 5 years for his alleged involvement within the merger of group associates Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, suspecting inventory worth manipulation and different wrongdoings which enabled the defendants to profit on the expense of minority traders, the report famous.
Lee and the executives denied wrongdoing, noting that the merger and accounting processes which prosecutors have a problem with have been a part of regular administration actions.
“I’ve by no means had my private pursuits in thoughts in the midst of the merger, Lee advised the courtroom, in line with the report.
Lee added that the merger was a part of efforts to preempt rising uncertainties, at the moment elevated by geopolitical dangers, international provide chain reorganisation, and the faster-than-expected affect of generative AI on chips and different companies.
The defendants’ legal professionals famous that the prosecution did not replicate proof which got here up throughout some 106 hearings within the three-year trial, together with the views of most minority shareholders, the result of the merger, and the South Korean authorities’s findings in a global dispute with hedge fund Elliott, as per the report.
Analysts famous that an acquittal could present Lee extra room to go forward with main strategic choices, primarily in mergers and acquisitions.
