Vice Chairman of Samsung Group, who was nicknamed `Crown Prince of Samsung` by the Korean press – is the most prominent face in the `Park Geun-hye – Choi Soon-sil gate` case.
The trial of Lee Jae-yong opened on March 9, attracting strong attention from the public, especially businesses.
In particular, it is closely related to Ms. Park Geun-hye, the first female president of Korea, whose political life was decided by the Constitutional Court on March 10 with a verdict of deposition.
Why bribe?
The `Crown Prince of Samsung` was accused of bribing 43.3 billion won (38 million USD) to President Park Geun-hye and `magician` Choi Soon-sil to gain control of the Samsung empire;
Four accomplices, senior managers of Samsung, also appeared in court.
“Crown Prince of Samsung” testified before the Korean National Assembly in December 2016.
All of the above defendants were absent from the March 9 trial.
Lee Jae-yong, 48 years old, is the first son among four children of Mr. Lee Kun-hee, current Chairman of the Board of Directors of Samsung Group.
Chairman Kun-hee, 75 years old this year, had a stroke in 2014. After that, someone spread fake news that he had died.
Chairman Lee Kun-hee himself really wants the above process to go smoothly and quickly, but there are many people in his family who are hindering this.
Lee Maeng-hee and Lee Sook-hee, Lee Kun-hee’s two brothers, once demanded a share of Samsung shares worth 913.56 billion won ($850 million) which they said was given to Mr. Lee Byun-chul, the founder of the group.
Public opinion in general thinks that the reason `crown prince` Lee Jae-yong bribed was to quickly legalize the inheritance.
For small and medium-sized companies, this problem is not very big, but Samsung is a special case.
According to Professor Fendos, the inheritance tax is one of the leading factors that makes `Samsung’s crown prince` have to carefully calculate.
Samsung Group’s assets are worth 529.5 billion USD (2014 data).
It’s a huge amount of money, even though the government can pay it in installments over 10 years or longer.
6 million euros to buy a horse for Ms. Choi’s daughter?
According to the indictment, `Crown Prince Samsung` spent an amount of up to 38 million USD on 4 organizations and agencies under the leadership of Ms. Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of President Park Geun-hye.
Last December, testifying before the National Assembly, Mr. Lee Jae-yong confirmed that he donated 19 million USD to two non-profit funds and Ms. Choi’s Winter Sports Center.
Of the remaining 19 million USD that Samsung spent on places to help the `crown prince` safely ascend the throne, a special sum of 6 million euros was transferred to a sports agency in Germany that was nominally responsible for training.
This amount includes money to buy a very expensive super war horse for Ms. Choi’s daughter.
(Next time: Tragedy piles up)
According to Nguyen Cao
Laborer