Until a few months ago, Lee Jae-yong was well on the way to securing his status as South Korea’s most powerful business leader.
But on Friday, the heir to the Samsung empire could be starting a lengthy prison sentence for his alleged role in a bribery and corruption scandal that has already triggered the impeachment of the country’s former president, Park Geun-hye.
is father’s ill health propelled him to the top of a huge business empire whose consumer electronics arm alone accounts for a fifth of all South Korea’s exports.
Once regarded as the heir apparent to the corporate giant built on mobile phones and TVs, but whose other interests, including hotels, shipbuilding, insurance and construction, reach into every area of the South Korean economy, he now faces a future simply as prisoner Lee.
Meanwhile, the family firm he was on the cusp of leading faces a period of unprecedented upheaval. Two days before he was sentenced, Samsung tried to project an air of normality with the launch of its latest smartphone – the Galaxy Note 8 – an attempt to banish memories of the disaster that befell its predecessor, the Galaxy Note 7.
“There’s no one right now who’ll decide on group-wide issues,” an anonymous Samsung source told Reuters. “It’s not impossible to imagine a scenario where a Samsung affiliate gets into trouble and other units become entangled.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/aug/24/samsung-heir-faces-long-jail-term-in-south-koreas-trial-of-the-century
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