Samsung vice chairman Jay Y. Lee has officially been indicted for corruption in the same case that saw the country’s president Park Guen-hye impeached for her involvement last December.
Money in exchange for support
Lee transferred tens of millions of dollars to organizations controlled by Choi Soon-sil, confident to the former president and key figure in the entire case. In exchange for the funds, Lee garnered political support, for example when two of the company’s subsidiaries merged several years ago. Jay Y. Lee may only be Samsung’s vice chairman by name, ever since his father’s heart attack in 2014, he ran the Korean technology giant as its leader.
Following the news of the indictment, Samsung also announced it fired three directors involved, but Lee was not one of them. It will also shutter the company’s agency that has to make sure every major company decision complies with regulations.
More than just Samsung
The South Korean corruption scandal does not only implicate Samsung: several other family-run businesses (like LG and Hyundai) are suspected to have done similar things. Now, the Korean population wonders whether these close ties between the companies and the government should persist. It all started in the 1960s, when the then-president decided to hand several major projects, often financed with government-backed loans, to a number of companies in an attempt to modernize the country.
Several politicians agree with the general population and now call these ties a remnant of a past that should remain in the past. Moreover, the companies have such a stifling grip on South Korea’s economy, basically strangling the life out of smaller and new companies.
