South Korea Prosecutors Seek Arrest of Samsung Chief Jay Y Lee For Bribery (cnbc.com)

South Korea's special prosecutors' office said it will seek a warrant to arrest the head of Samsung Group, the country's biggest conglomerate, accusing him of paying multi-million dollar bribes to a friend of President Park Geun-hye. From a report: Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee was questioned for 22 straight hours last week as investigators probed a corruption scandal that resulted in parliament impeaching Park last month. The special prosecutors' office accused Lee of paying bribes totaling 43 billion won ($36.42 million) to Choi Soon-sil, a friend of the president who is at the center of scandal. Lee, who became the de facto head of the Samsung Group after his father, Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014, was also accused of embezzlement and perjury in the prosecution's application for an arrest warrant.

Comments

Haven't these people learned?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung should have just hired him to give some speeches, nothing illegal about that!

Re:And not the first

[youngone]

I'm pretty sure it's been going on for a lot longer than the last 10 years, it's the whole basis of the Korean economic miracle.

After the Korean War, South Korea was a poor agrarian country, barely able to feed itself, in fact the standard of living was higher in North Korea.

The Chaebols dealt with (and probably created) whatever Government was in power, there were years of brutal Military dictatorships with South Korea only being a democracy since about 1987.

The Chaebols are so powerful within South Korea that I'm not even sure corruption is the right term here, it might just be how things are done there.

It would be good to have a Korean's perspective.

Re:And not the first

[allcoolnameswheretak]

Well, it's a great testament to South Korean democracy and rule of law that the head of the company who controls practically a fifth of South Korea's GDP and the head of state can be brought to justice.

Re:And not the first

[Mashiki]

Well you can bet that if Norway was in a perpetual state of war with Russia like S.Korea is with N.Korea they wouldn't allow exceptions either. There's a reason why they don't allow people to opt out for conscription like that there. I get the point you're trying to make, but things are fundamentally different when the nearest country is the one you've been at war with for 50+ years.