Jay Y. Lee, Samsung’s de facto chief, has been appointed the firm’s executive chairman, the firm’s board of administrators introduced Wednesday. The transfer comes a small more than two months after Lee was granted a presidential pardon for his function in a corruption scandal that rocked South Korea.
The appointment was granted thanks to “the present unsure global small business ecosystem and the urgent want for much better accountability and business balance,” the board stated in a assertion.
Samsung announced Lee’s appointment just after putting up a 31% decrease in third-quarter revenue, its very first 12 months-more than-yr quarterly drop in almost three many years.
Lee was Samsung’s vice chairman and had acted as the company’s de facto head because his father, Lee Kun-Hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014. He confronted up to 12 a long time in prison after currently being charged with bribery in 2017. The circumstance was part of a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of former South Korean President Park Geun-hye.
Lee was granted parole and released from prison in August 2021, right after serving two and a half years on a five-calendar year sentence on bribery, perjury and embezzlement charges. The pardon, granted in August 2022 by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, was widely observed as a mainly symbolic go that would let him to consider manage of the electronics huge.
Lee experienced often denied the allegations versus him in court, but his convictions would have prevented him from being ready to do the job for five many years and restricted his overseas journey below Korean law.
Samsung associates failed to quickly reply to a request for additional comment.
