2005 or Chairman Lee II’s criminal conviction in 1997. Samsung forcefully
denied the allegations and later described Kim Yong-chul in this way to The
New York Times: “When you see a pile of excrement, you avoid it, not
because you fear it but because it’s dirty.”
Kim told an audience at the Seoul Foreign Correspondents’ Club that he
had come forward when Samsung fired his law firm.
—
KIM’S ALLEGATIONS CAUSED ENOUGH of a ruckus to merit an
investigation, approved by the South Korean president himself. South
Korean prosecutors often respond to the shifting political winds of the
moment, rather than the merits of the evidence alone. Investigators
rummaged through the chairman’s office and, a day later, on January 14,
2008, swooped in on the Samsung headquarters and his mountainside
home.
Small bands of elderly protesters gathered around Seoul holding
pickets, complaining of how Samsung was being treated. But it’s unclear
how many of these demonstrators were authentic. An investigation by
South Korean news channel JTBC later revealed that one of these protest
groups, the Korea Parent Federation, had been receiving money transfers of
more than $400,000 from a probusiness lobbying group, the Federation of
Korean Industries (FKI).
South Korean newspapers called Kim Yong-chul a “traitor” and “no
different from a gigolo or a gold-digger.” One angry protester torched a
photograph of the whistleblower with a makeshift flamethrower.
Nonetheless, Korean prosecutors indicted Chairman Lee for tax evasion
and breach of trust, claiming he damaged his company’s interests and
profits by forcing Samsung subsidiaries to sell shares at unfairly low prices
to his son, damaging the interests of shareholders. The share sales made it
easier for Jay to raise his stake and get the throne to the Samsung empire.
The chairman denied the allegations in April 2008 but resigned as
chairman of the Samsung Group that month. Prosecutors didn’t pursue the
bribery charge, citing a lack of evidence, and complained that much
evidence had been destroyed.
“I sincerely apologize and will do my best to take full legal and moral
responsibility,” he told reporters. “It grieves me, for I still have many things