Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics, stated on the 17th, "We sincerely thank the court," as the acquittal of the charges related to the merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries was confirmed.
On that day, the legal team for Samsung said in a statement, "Today, through the Supreme Court's final judgment, it has been clearly confirmed that the merger of Samsung C&T and the accounting treatment of Samsung Biologics were lawful."
They added, "We sincerely thank the court for making a wise judgment through thorough hearings over the past five years."
Earlier, Samsung Group merged the two companies in 2015 under the condition of exchanging one share of Cheil Industries for three shares of Samsung C&T. The prosecution claimed that this calculation of the merger ratio was carried out excessively to ensure a stable succession of management for Lee and infringed on the interests of shareholders, leading to the indictment of Lee and executives on 19 charges related to accounting fraud in September 2020.
However, both the first and second trial courts acquitted Lee on all 19 charges. The reason was that they could not accept the evidential value of the backup servers seized by the prosecution and it was difficult to see an intent for accounting fraud.