Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, center, leaves the district court in Seoul, South Korea, for a detention center. Lee arrived in court on Monday as the court decides if he should be arrested for possible involvement in alleged merger and accounting fraud.Monday, June 8, 2020.
The merger case is separate from his ongoing retrial, but adds to the difficulties for the Samsung group, by far the biggest of the family-controlled conglomerates, or chaebols, that dominate business in the world's 12th-largest economy. "There was an insufficient explanation on the need to arrest the defendants against the principle of trial without detention," Judge Won Jung-sook said in a court statement.
Last week, the Samsung group rejected media reports of price manipulation as "groundless", saying in a statement Lee did not take part in "any illegal acts". He was jailed for five years in 2017 in connection with Park's corruption scandal but was released a year later on appeal before the country's top court ordered him to face a new trial.