SEOUL — Samsung Electronics’ Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was paroled on Friday after serving more than half of a 30-month prison term for corruption, raising fresh questions about the principle of equality under the law in South Korea where convicted business titans often receive leniency.
The 53-year-old executive, who despite his title is the company’s key figure, walked out of the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, a city just south of Seoul, in the morning. He made brief remarks to waiting reporters, bowed and got into a vehicle and departed.
Lee was put on a list of 810 prisoners to be released on the occasion of Liberation Day, which falls on Sunday. The nine-member Parole Review Committee, chaired by Vice Justice Minister Kang Sung-kook, decided to release Lee in a meeting on Monday, hoping that his presence in the executive suite will provide a boost to South Korea’s economy.
“In particular, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong was included on the list as we considered the national economy and global economic circumstances due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” a justice ministry statement says. “We also considered various factors, including public sentiment and his attitude in prison.”
Lee has served 18 months, or 60%, of a two-and-half-year term for bribery and embezzlement. The Seoul High Court ruled that Lee embezzled 8.7 billion won ($7.4 million) of corporate funds to bribe former President Park Geun-hye in 2015. That trial was part of a corruption scandal that ousted Park in 2017.
The tycoon’s release comes as Samsung faces tough competition from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Intel and other rivals in the global chip industry. The three companies are keen to lead the market as semiconductors gain importance in the context of U.S.-China conflicts over trade and technology.
The South Korean tech giant, which leads the global memory chip market, also aspires to be the top logic chipmaker by 2030. It plans to spend 171 trillion won to accelerate research into cutting-edge semiconductor process technologies and the construction of a new chip plant.
China’s Xiaomi, meanwhile, intends to dethrone Samsung from the top of the global smartphone market. Xiaomi recently surged past Apple to become the world’s second-largest seller of the devices.
“Our current task is to cement the No. 2 position in the global market,” Xiaomi founder and CEO Lei Jun said Tuesday during an online event to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the company’s first smartphone launch. “We aim to become global No. 1 in three years.”
Samsung on Wednesday unveiled its new foldable smartphone lineup, seeking to make the category more appealing and affordable. It said its global smartphone shipments came to 60 million units in the second quarter, compared to more than 70 million in the previous three months. The shortfall was due to suspensions at factories in COVID-clobbered Vietnam, a major production base for Samsung.
Lee is far from the first South Korean captain of industry to run afoul of the law and then receive leniency.
His father, the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, received two presidential pardons. The second one, in 2009, came after he had been given a suspended three-year jail term for embezzlement and tax evasion. Lee Myung-bak, the president at the time, subsequently tasked International Olympic Committee member Lee with helping South Korea win its ultimately successful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Before that, Lee received a pardon from President Kim Young-sam in 1997 after a conviction and suspended two-year prison term for bribing previous President Roh Tae-woo.
Chung Mong-koo, currently honorary chairman of Hyundai Motor, in 2007 was sentenced to three years in prison for embezzlement and breach of trust, although an appeals court judge suspended the prison term, famously saying Chung was too important to the national economy to serve time.
SK Chairman Chey Tae-won, who was serving a four-year term for embezzlement, was pardoned in 2015 by Park in a Liberation Day clemency aimed at spurring investments by the conglomerate.
The pardons highlight the generous treatment leaders of South Korea’s influential chaebol, or family-run conglomerates, often receive. The thinking among senior politicians appears to be that it is better to let top business executives out of prison so they can contribute to the economy.
Park Yong-jin, a member of the National Assembly in President Moon Jae-in’s governing Democratic Party and a contender in next year’s presidential election, on Monday expressed opposition to Lee being paroled, calling it an affront to the rule of law and an example of how the wealthy and powerful always have a way out.
During the past 10 years, Park said before the justice ministry’s decision on Lee was announced, “only 0.3% of prisoners were given parole before completing 80% of their jail terms.”
Last month, Jang Hye-young, who sits in the National Assembly, South Korea’s legislature, with the progressive Justice Party, said paroling Lee would amount to a denial of equality.