Samsung Heir Lee Jae-yong Sentenced To 30 Months in Prison in Bribery Case

A South Korean court sentenced Samsung Electronics heir Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, otherwise known as Jay Y. Lee, to two-and-a-half years in prison on a bribery charge on Monday, a ruling which is likely to have ramifications for his leadership of the tech giant as well as South Korea's views toward big business. From a report: With this, Lee will be sidelined for the time being from major decision making at the company as it strives to overtake competitors. He will also be unable to oversee the process of inheritance from his father, who died in October, crucial to keeping control of Samsung. Lee, 52, was convicted of bribing an associate of former president Park Geun-hye and jailed for five years in 2017. He denied wrongdoing, the sentence was reduced and suspended on appeal, and he was released after serving a year.

Trump to pardon 100 criminals Tuesday

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US, he would simply be able to buy himself a pardon.

Re:

[50000BTU_barbecue]

You think this is unique to the U.S. of A.??

Re:

[_merlin]

It pretty much is. There's no equivalent for these presidential pardons in e.g. Australia or New Zealand. It's like a papal indulgence or a royal pardon. For all your supposed hate for monarchy, you do your best to treat your president as a monarch.

The best that Samsung has to offer

[OneHundredAndTen]

Almost as good as their software and their hot phones.

Criminal behavior

[MikeMo]

I find it odd that so many people are offended by Apple’s legal but morally questionable behavior and so buy products from Samsung, who engage in actual illegal and immoral behavior. Strange.

Re:

[quonset]

It's like when people whine and moan about how rich Jeff Bezos is or how poorly Amazon pays and treats its warehouse workers, yet have a Prime account so they can ship all the stuff they buy every month from Amazon for free.

Re:

[alvinrod]

Normally people only come up with such justifications after the fact. Some people just don't like Apple or dislike the Apple sycophants so much that they end up disliking the company. Of course they really don't care so they don't bother applying any scrutiny to other companies they don't have such disdain for.

I also thinks it's rather silly to dislike Samsung for something an executive did. It's a massive company with thousands of workers, most of them just regular people trying to make a good product.

Re:

[fred911]

'' Like or dislike a company for the products they offer, adherence to open standards and software, or even for external reasons such as ...'' ... rootkits on CDs?

Even without my addition it sounded like you were describing Sony.

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

We're literally talking about one person here. One person from Samsung tried to bribe people. This isn't "Samsung" engaging in illegal and immoral behaviour - just one person.

Re:

[MikeMo]

Yes, it is literally one person, but this one person is literally a significant owner (>16%) and chairman of the company, not some guy pushing a broom. Additionally, his father, son of the founder of Samsung, was convicted twice, although pardoned. The bribes Lee Jay-yong gave to the president of Korea were intended to allow him to tighten his control of Samsung. It appears to be a family tradition.

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

So how does, what essentially amounts to, internal politics translate to Samsung as a company?

Re:

[MikeMo]

I don’t know what you mean by internal politics. He was convicted of bribing the president of the country to pass laws which would make it easier for him to control Samsung. Since he owns so much of the company, founded by his grandfather, and since both he and his father have been convicted of felonies, it certainly implies he is willing to break the law to get what he wants. Who knows what he might be doing within the companies for which he has not been caught.

What would you be saying about Ap

Re:

[The Evil Atheist]

implies he is willing to break the law to get what he wants.

Again, how does this reflect on SAMSUNG? Your original argument was about Apple vs Samsung.

What would you be saying about Apple if Steve Jobs and then Tim Cook were convicted of such behavior?

So you assume Jobs and Cook are clean.

Re:

[_merlin]

The thing about Korea is that rich and well-connected people actually get prosecuted for corruption. Every former president of Korea has ended up being found guilty of something. In the US, paying for political favours is just called lobbying.

Goodfellas Prison maybe

[AcidFnTonic]

I picture the prison time from Goodfellas when the mob did time.

They had a basically private flat inside the prison, away from the "regular inmates", with a full kitchen, table for drinks/playing cars, and radio/tv.

They "stayed" there but I wouldn't exactly say they served time.

I presume this billionaire going to prison in his own country will get something similar, just to keep the masses thinking he is being punished.

Book on Samsung corruption

[GlobalEcho]

I once read a review (in English) of this book [amazon.com] by Kim Yung-cheol (loose title translation: Thought on Samsung). It's apparently quite the eye-opener and I wish it had been translated.

There truly were outrageous things happening in Korea, especially during the post-war military dictatorship. Nothing on the level of the Japanese colonial occupation, but much worse than modern Korea. That's saying a lot given modern Korean corruption still killed ~300 children in the Sewol disaster within the past decade,