The prosecution confirmed that Jay Y Lee had been summoned for questioning.
Seoul:
Samsung group heir Jay Y Lee was interviewed by prosecutors on Tuesday about a controversial 2015 merger and suspected accounting fraud that they believe may have helped him move his agenda forward. succession planning in the country’s largest conglomerate.
The interrogation brings new legal problems to Lee who is already facing a corruption prosecution seeking support to succeed the patriarch of the sick group Lee Kun-hee, and who involved former South Korean president Park Geun -hye.
Prosecutors investigated suspected accounting fraud at pharmaceutical company Samsung Biologics after Korean financial watchdog complained that the company’s value had been swelled by 4.5 trillion won (3.64 billion won) dollars) in 2015.
They alleged that Biologics had broken accounting rules to help improve the value of its main owner, Cheil Industries, which counted Lee as its main shareholder, Yonhap News Agency, which first reported Lee’s interrogations, said.
Cheil, the fashion and theme park operator of the Samsung group, merged with the de facto holding company Samsung C&T in a transaction in 2015 that allowed Lee to become the largest shareholder of Samsung C&T.
The deal has been criticized by the American hedge fund Elliott Management and other investors for favoring family members at the expense of minority shareholders.
The prosecution confirmed that Lee had been summoned for questioning.
“We have summoned a person today to take part in the Samsung group’s illegal merger and account fraud case,” an official in the Seoul central district attorney’s office told Reuters.
A spokesperson for Samsung Electronics, the largest conglomerate company of which Lee is vice-president, declined to comment.
Lee, 51, served a one-year sentence on the corruption case until it was stayed in 2018, but the possibility of a harsher sentence emerged after the Supreme Court quashed a lower court ruling on the case last year.
Earlier this month, Lee apologized for the corruption scandal and promised that he would not pass the business founded by his grandfather to his children. But it has been criticized by governance experts for its lack of detail.
“There is still a lot of controversy surrounding his succession to the leadership. He will not be able to avoid public criticism,” said Park Ju-gun, director of research firm CEO Score.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
