Samsung chair acquitted in appeal court of charges linked to management succession

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Monday was acquitted in an appeal court of charges linked to his management succession, according to multiple media outlets.

The Seoul High Court ruled against charges of accounting fraud, filed in September 2020 by prosecutors, upholding the lower court's acquittal of Lee in February last year.

Thirteen more defendants, including former Samsung executives, were found not guilty of similar charges.

Lee was indicted on charges relevant to a controversial merger in 2015 between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T.

Prosecutors suspected that Samsung C&T, the de-facto holding company of Samsung Group, was devaluated in the stock market through irregularities, while inflating the valuation of Cheil, controlled by Lee at the time.

Three Samsung C&T shares were offered for one Cheil share to help Lee smoothly inherit the management control of the country's biggest family-run conglomerate by allowing Lee to control the merged Samsung C&T, one of key shareholders of Samsung Electronics, prosecutors believed.

The Samsung family was known to have controlled the group with a fraction of shares through cross-shareholding.

Lee was also charged by prosecutors with his involvement in the suspected accounting fraud at Samsung BioLogics, a biopharmaceutical subsidiary of Cheil.