South Korean Court Dismisses Arrest Warrant For Samsung Chief (reuters.com) 17
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: A South Korean court on Thursday dismissed an arrest warrant against the head of Samsung Group, the country's largest conglomerate, amid a graft scandal that has led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye. But the reprieve for Jay Y. Lee, 48, may only be temporary, as the special prosecutor's office said it would pursue the case. Lee, who has led Samsung since his father, Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014, was still likely to face the same charges of bribery, embezzlement and perjury, legal analysts said, even if he is not detained. The special prosecutor's office said it would be continuing its probe but had not decided whether to make another arrest warrant request, and the setback would not change its plans to investigate other conglomerates. Spokesman Lee Kyu-chul said the prosecution was unconvinced by the Samsung chief's argument that he was a victim of coercion due to pressure from Park. The office has accused Lee of paying multi-million dollar bribes to Park's confidant, Choi Soon-sil, the woman at the heart of the scandal, to win support from the National Pension Service for a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung Group affiliates. The merger helped cement Lee's control over the smartphones-to-biopharmaceuticals business empire.
Once again (Score:3)
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Kim Jong Un, is that you?
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Not Surprising. Korean Business Culture as Usual (Score:3, Informative)
I worked for Samsung for years. It's not unusual to be asked to do something unethical (steal information/pricing from competitors or customers, cover up the mis-deeds of your boss, etc.) Bribery is considered OK and necessary for business there. And when you have special connections you get special treatment. Hence this story.
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Yeah but at least they buy you a drink (or 50) after work!
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And when you have special connections you get special treatment
Is there a country where this isn't valid?
I don't get it.. (Score:2)
Damn (Score:3)
And there I was just a few days ago, praising South Korean democracy and rule of law for bringing justice to the head of the company that contributes one fifth of South Korean GDP...
So much for that...
Judge for sale, judge for sale! (Score:2, Interesting)
I wonder how much that cost Samsung shareholders? Bribing at that level is not cheap.
No surprise... (Score:2)
Samsung literally employs one quarter of the entire population of S. Korea. Nothing really bad will ever happen to them no matter what they do.
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But don't say bad things can't happen to them. The people in charge can make mistakes that have a significant impact on the country. Examples: banksters too big to fail. Detroit rust belt bankruptcies and bailouts. Wall Street nearly wrecking the global economy.
It is premature to suggest that nothing bad can happen to Samsung no matter what they do. After the excellent Galaxy S5, they afflicted us with the Galaxy S6, and then with
A country built on corruption (Score:2, Interesting)
We're talking about a country that has this kind of corruption built into its culture. I'm not even being hyperbolic about this - check out some of their traditional children's storeys and half of them are about one character tricking another. Samsung is a company which has grown almost entirely off of ripoffs, copyright and patent infringement - from copying patented Sharp LCD panel technology (which sharp apparently spent over a billion to develop and Samsung just straight up stole it) to the whole iPhone
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Not that I disagree but you really are wrong about the whole copying the IPhone thing... Apple stirred up the issue and the American courts actually found that Samsung was copied by Apple and *ALL APPLE IPHONES WOULD BE ILLEGAL TO IMPORT INTO THE USA*..... which Obama used a Presidential Pardon to immediately nullify. We can't have it be illegal to import phones to a Ra-Ra American company....
tl;dr: America does the same in reverse.
Oh, no! (Score:2)