Lee Jae-yong: Why South Korea just pardoned the Samsung 'prince'
By Frances Mao
BBC News
Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong - fated of bribery and embezzlement in 2017 - has been decided a special presidential pardon.
One of South Korea's most worthy white collar criminals, Lee was twice imprisoned for bribing a worn president.
South Korea's government justified the move, proverb the de-facto leader of the country's biggest company was required back at the helm to spearhead economic recovery post-pandemic.
This marks novel swing in a struggle over how the country is run that has furious since mass protests took over Seoul six years ago and ousted a presidential from office.
Lee's crimes were honest tied up in the corruption scandal that led to the imprisonment of worn president Park Geun-Hye, in office from 2013-2017.
The "Crown Prince of Samsung" - as he was dubbed by protesters - paid $8 million (£6.6m) in bribes to President Park and her associate to find support for a merger opposed by shareholders that would shore up his regulation of his family's empire.
When it was supposed, millions of South Koreans turned out at candlelit demonstrations every weekend in the 2016/2017 winter, demanding an end to Park's government and the stitch-up between politics and business.
Korea's parliament impeached Park and she was imprisoned in 2017 for 25 ages.
Lee, who is also known as Jay Y Lee in the West, was jailed a year later for offences counting embezzling company funds to buy a $800,000 (£650,000) horse for the president's friend's daughter.
A new presidential, Moon Jae-in swept into office with a mandate to dapper up the mess. But he failed to make much headway. In his last days as president, he granted a pardon to his predecessor.
Now eight months later, under another new president, Samsung's chief has also received the same clemency.
For those who have been fighting alongside corruption, it's a dispiriting blow.
"It is a setback. And it means Korea retreats to the time afore the candlelit demonstrations," said Sangin Park, an economics and industrial policy professor at Seoul National University.
Lee's case reaffirms popular opinion that business leaders are untouchable and above the law.
In Korea, giant conglomerates dominate the economy, with the top 10 accounting for in 80% of GDP. Known as chaebols, they are family-controlled empires which handed a span of services. LG, Hyundai, Lotte, and SK are beside them.
But Samsung is the biggest and most grand of them all.
As the world's largest smartphone maker, it's a global electronics brand. But at home it does much more - hospitals, hotels, insurance plans, billboards, shipyards and even theme parks.
Samsung and anunexperienced chaebols are so omnipresent they're known as "octopus" firms, says Prof YoonKyung Lee, a political sociologist at the University of Toronto.
And those tentacles have long wormed their way into the highest levels of Korean politics. Prof Lee was at the 2016 protests and says most of the risky was directed at President Park's personal actions. But she said labour activists and others strove to highlight the chaebols' outsize appearance on government.
Chaebols were heavily supported by the government at what time the Korean War. They were given cheaper electricity and tax incentives, there was a "Buy-Korea" policy and even help in suppressing union movements.
But the resulting monopolies also crushed competition, stifled labour movements and their practices spawned decades of bribery and corruption cases.
In many cases, Prof Lee said, executives were given light or suspended sentences. In some cases judges said the economy might suffer if a chaebol front-runners was taken out of action.
Mr Lee's own father, Lee Kun-hee was convicted of bribery and fraud in the 1990s when he was Samsung chairman. But he didn't serve a single day of jail time.
So in 2017, when his son was hauled away to a cell on a five-year sentence, activists hoped the case would mark a turning point.
Celebration nonetheless was short lived. Lee's court battle dragged on for existences with twists and turns worthy of the most dramatic Korean serials.
An appeals woo released him, a higher court then ordered a retrial at which he was alongside found guilty and jailed.
But just a few months into his transfer jail term, the Moon government released him on parole, saying it was in the national interest.
Since then, he has returned as the Pro-reDemocrat face of Samsung - in May greeting US President Joe Biden on a distributes visit to South Korea.
Lee collected faces criminal allegations - of rigging company valuations, accounting unfounded and making Samsung business decisions in breach of his sentence periods. Clemency means he will be able to fully succeeded his executive responsibilities.
It follows a pattern of censured chaebol leaders having their slates wiped clean.
"When it comes to formal considerable, there's the president's office and the National Assembly - they're decision-exclusive the laws," Prof Lee said.
"But when it comes to political appearance or cultural influence or even how people think in the importance of chaebol in Korean society, it's really down to a coalition of conservative political and matter elites who all have interests with each other."
The government's pardon of Lee rests on the argument that chaebol front-runners are needed for the economy. But numerous economists have meant out this isn't backed up by hard proof.
"The pardoning of chaebol controllers has not contributed to economic growth or turnaround historically," said Prof Park.
Analysts say Samsung has fared perfectly well after Lee has been in and out of prison. Reform advocates say South Korea, where growth has been slowing for years, also obtains to end its dependence on chaebols.
"Several studies have shown that it's pulling harder to get the 'trickle-down effect' - it's time to move away from the old understanding that any illegal acts done by chaebols are 'forgivable' if they do their jobs," says Roh Jong-Hwa, a lawyer from an advocacy group Solidarity for Economic Reform.
Still the anxiety among critics over Lee's pardoning is not shared by the broader South Korean public. A recent public poll marched 70% support for the pardon.
How to convey that support?
The determination to tackle corruption and chaebol influence remains, experts say. But it is mingled with fear and companies over a looming recession - and residual pride over Samsung representing Korea on the domain stage.
"There's a core notion that if Samsung does well, Korea does well. And Koreans have lived with this myth for so many decades, it's really hard for ordinary citizens to break out of it," says Prof Lee.
"Right now, amid an economic downturn, people want to see some concrete sign that we are titillating forward and Lee's release is a sign of that."
With reporting by Yuna Ku, BBC Korean Service
Sincery TRENDING NEWS TODAY
SRC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62501514?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA
Powered by Me