And with that, the hearing ended.
The judge later found the chairman guilty of bribery and sentenced him
to two years in prison. But he went on to commute the chairman’s sentence.
“[The court] has taken into account the fact that Lee Kun-hee, as
Samsung Group Chairman, contributed a considerable deal...with his
business activities; the fact that he continues to contribute greatly to the
advancement of the nation’s sports, culture and arts; the fact that he is
deeply repentant of his offenses; the fact that he has pledged to strengthen
and disseminate sound business practices following this event; and the fact
that he is a first-time offender, among others.”
He exited the courtroom and was driven off by his chauffeur a free
man.
But the Korean business community reacted with disgust to the verdict.
“The verdicts are shocking,” a spokesman for the Federation of Korean
Industries, the lobbying group first chaired by Chairman Lee’s father, told
the Los Angeles Times. “This will gravely affect Korean business activities
overseas. It will also hurt the morale of the business community.”
In October 1997, Korea’s president, Kim Young-sam, pardoned
Chairman Lee and the other convicted businesspeople.
The minister of justice told the Korea Economic Daily newspaper they
had been freed “out of consideration for the fact that their imprisonment
would lead to a restriction of their business activities and negatively impact
their credibility overseas.”
“My uncle’s very lucky,” Henry Cho, the chairman’s nephew, told me.
“He didn’t go to jail. A lot of people did.”
—
AS THE CHAIRMAN WAS awaiting his pardon in the summer of 1997, Nam
S. Lee, one of his aides in the Tower, noticed the tense silence on the
twenty-eighth floor of the Samsung headquarters.
“We knew something was wrong,” Nam S. Lee told me in a coffee shop
in central Seoul.
The stock tickers and news headlines across Asia were ominous. “The
Thai Gamble: Devaluing Currency to Revive Economy,” read a New York
Times headline in July 1997.
Runaway currency speculation and high-risk, high-debt economic