Samsung chief will return to prison for bribery

The Seoul High Court sentenced Samsung’s top leader, Lee Jae-yong, to 2 1/2 years in prison Monday for bribing South Korea’s former president, Park Geun-hye.

Lee’s case must go to the Supreme Court before it is formally closed. In South Korea, the Supreme Court can either endorse a lower court’s ruling on a case or send it back for a retrial. It cannot overrule a lower court’s sentence.

When Lee’s case first reached the Supreme Court in 2019, the court returned it to the Seoul High Court for retrial, saying that it had underestimated the amount of bribes Lee paid to Park and her secretive confident, Choi Soon-sil, while Park was in power. It said the amount should be 8.6 billion won ($7.8 million), not 3.6 billion, as the lower court had found.

In its ruling Monday, the Seoul High Court accepted 8.6 billion won as the correct amount, as instructed by the Supreme Court. Its decision to do so meant that it was all but a done deal that the Supreme Court would endorse the ruling.

Lee already spent one year in jail after being arrested by prosecutors in 2017 in connection to the bribery case. He is now expected to only spend 1 1/2 years in prison with time served, taking him away from the day-to-day management of one of the world’s most valuable tech giants.

After the court issued its sentence Monday, Lee was immediately arrested in the courtroom so he could start serving his time.

© 2020 New York Times News Service