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Former Samsung Chairman and CEOs 'not guilty'

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-05-29 17:38

SEOUL -- South Korea's Supreme Court on Friday confirmed lower courts' ruling of not guilty for former Chairman of Samsung Group, South Korea's biggest business conglomerate, Lee Kun-hee, who had been charged with illegal transfer of wealth and managerial control to his only son Lee Jae-yong.

In this file photo, Lee Jae-yong, former senior executive of Samsung Electronics and only son of Samsung group chairman Lee Kun-hee, arrives for his father's trial as a witness at a Seoul court July 1, 2008. [Agencies]

The Supreme Court, in addition, overruled the Seoul High Court' s verdict for two former Samsung CEO Huh Tae-hak and Park Ro-bin who had been charged with helping Lee Jae-yong buy convertible bonds issued by Samsung Everland, Samsung Group's de facto holding company, at a below-market price in 1996.

The Supreme Court said it did not see any violation of trust laws in the case, adding that Samsung Everland cannot be considered to have suffered any loss from the 1996 bond deals as its existing shareholders voluntarily chose not to buy the bonds up for sale at that time.

A district court and an appellate court had sentenced two to three years to the two Samsung executives for causing the company billions of won (millions of US dollars) in losses.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court overruled a lower court's 'not guilty' verdict for Lee Kun-hee in a separate case on bond-with- warrant (BW) transactions in Samsung SDS, a subsidiary of Samsung Group.

Lee was indicted for forcing Samsung SDS to sell its BWs to his family at a huge discount in 1999, which led to a loss of 154 billion won (US$122.7 million).

The transactions have been criticized as illegal in that they were aimed at enabling Lee to hand over control of the Samsung Group to his son, local media reported.

Related readings:  Samsung to invest $1b in China  Samsung ordered to pay $7.3m  Lee gets suspended sentence  Samsung's former boss apologizes  I am truly sorry, says Samsung's Lee