Samsung Electronics is reeling Monday after an appellate court handed a prison sentence of two-and-a-half years to Samsung’s Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong in a rehearing of a major bribery case.
Kim Bo-eun for The Korea Times:
The court ruling puts the tech giant back into a leadership vacuum hampering major investment decisions in new businesses, which many expect will hurt the company’s global competitive edge.
MacDailyNews Take: Oh, no! Who will order the minions to copy Apple now?
The Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), another business lobby, released a statement expressing regret over the court’s decision.
“Lee’s sentence could put Samsung and the country’s economy in jeopardy given its position in contributing to the Korean economy and its global recognition. A leadership vacuum would delay execution of business decisions, which could cause Samsung to lag behind its global peers,” the FKI said. Other industry officials said Lee’s imprisonment will keep Samsung from going forward with large-scale investment plans, at a time when competition is heating up in the chip industry and major rivals are stepping up their game.
MacDailyNews Take: Gee, guess he shouldn’t have been doin’ all that, you know, bribin’.
Lee was convicted and imprisoned in 2017 over charges of bribery involving former President Park Geun-hye and her confidant Choi Soon-sil. He was released in 2018 after the Seoul High Court suspended the sentence.
The top court, however, ordered a re-hearing of the trial in 2019, stating Lee should be found guilty of some bribery charges excluded from the previous court ruling.
Lee was said to have bribed Park and Choi to smooth the transfer of power from his father to him.
The jail sentence comes at a crucial point given Lee is now on his own leading the country’s No. 1 conglomerate, after his father Lee Kun-hee passed away last year…
Calls had grown for leniency, given Samsung’s role in the local economy.
MacDailyNews Take: Too big to jail?
“Samsung’s market capitalization accounts for 30 percent of Korea’s market cap, and the conglomerate pays 20 percent of the total amount of corporate tax collected and employs 300,000 workers,” said Kim Dae-jong, a professor of management at Sejong University.
MacDailyNews Take: They don’t call South Korea “the Republic of Samsung” for nothing. It’s amazing he got 2.5 years, not that we expect him to serve it all behind bars.
MacDailyNews Note: Today is Martin Luther King Day in the U.S. and the markets are closed. As usual on such trading holidays, we will have limited posting today.
…should get Biden life!
Paddy wagon, take me home.
To the place, I belong.
Federal Prison
ADX Florence.
Florence, Colorado.
Biden’s new home.
Thanks John Denver (Country Roads)
If running a scam that has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans hasn’t led to a jail sentence, I’m not sure what political crime would.
If electing a scam that made millions grifting under the guise of over 36 years public service hasn’t led to jail, I’m not sure what political crime would either!
I am painting a celebratory artwork that will honor the coming release from jail, Samsung needs its leaders who, as Steve Jobs once said “Great artists steal”.
John, Picasso is a more accurate attribution of the quote. (“Lesser artists borrow; great artists steal”)
I thought you were a professional artist?
That’s tough
Funny … they all have black hair.
Guess we just have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the same thing to happen here…by the State of New York.
Unless he pardon’s himself today… 😉
It is extremely difficult to believe that this “management vacuum” is just whining by the C-level staff and the board. They want to be able to claim that any negative effects over the next six months or more are due to some non existent “management vacuum”.
He was convicted in 2017 and given a 5 year sentence.
He was released pending appellate court review.
It was reviewed and it was reduced to 2 1/2 years (probably including time served).
How did Samsung’s management NOT know he was going to be out for an extended period of time (and maybe permanently)?
Claiming a management vacuum, if real, means the board is a bunch of idiots.
He’ll be running the whole slavish copying enterprise from jail no doubt. It’ll be like he never left.
Yes, I hope that serial thief Samsung gets its comeuppance for stealing Apple’s crown jewels. However, such private oligarchies and corporate duchies subsidized with huge tax breaks and unneeded TARP bailouts in the US at a time when the Wall St. economy is booming due to increased pollution allotments and anti-worker initiatives are taking hold in the US and all over the world after a period of decency.
I think Dingler fell off his bicycle recently. Apparently, he wasn’t wearing a helmet.
Dingler is the ding dong of artists… when you think of ning nongs, Dingler certainly rings a bell. Ding dongs sing songs that Sam sung. And paint really crappy, anti-family, anti-Western values, pro-commie art.