By Joyce Lee
SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean prosecutors sought on Friday a five-year jail time period for the boss of Samsung Electronics (KS:) Jay Y. Lee over fees of accounting fraud and inventory value manipulation involving an $8 billion merger of Samsung associates in 2015.
Lee has denied any wrongdoing. The listening to is the ultimate decrease courtroom session earlier than a ruling, which is anticipated inside months, ending a trial that has lasted three years.
The case is the final towards Lee, who was pardoned for an earlier, separate conviction and cemented final 12 months his management place of Samsung as government chairman.
Throughout Friday’s listening to, prosecutors instructed the Seoul Central District Courtroom that Lee, 55, and different former executives had violated the Capital Markets Act to make doable the 2015 merger that helped Lee assume better management of the group’s flagship Samsung Electronics.
Prosecutors allege the executives’ involvement within the merger of group associates Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries included inventory value manipulation and different wrongdoings that helped them acquire on the expense of minority buyers.
“The defendants undermined the muse of the capital market to ease the chief’s succession,” the prosecution mentioned.
“They abused the authority granted by the corporate and shareholders for the personal pursuits of the group chief and abused excessive imbalance of knowledge.”
Lee and the executives have denied wrongdoing, saying the merger and accounting processes that prosecutors have taken situation with have been a part of regular administration actions. The defendants’ last arguments can be heard afterward Friday.
Lee attended the listening to on Friday. A small group of supporters chanted his title outdoors the courtroom throughout a recess, whereas detractors yelled angrily at him.
Analysts mentioned relying on the decision, Lee will discover it simpler or harder to form the way forward for Samsung Electronics and its associates. An acquittal would give him extra room to pursue main strategic choices, notably in mergers and acquisitions.
Lee was earlier convicted of bribing former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and went to jail for a complete of 18 months from 2017 to 2021. He was subsequently paroled in 2021 and pardoned in 2022.