The Supreme Court of Korea acquitted the Samsung heir.

According to South Korean media reports, the South Korean Supreme Court today pronounced its verdict on the case of Lee Jae-yong, the chairman of Samsung Electronics, regarding improper merger and accounting fraud, supporting the rulings of two lower courts and maintaining the innocence verdict for Lee Jae-yong. Lee Jae-yong and several senior executives of Samsung Group were accused of "allegedly manipulating the stock price of Samsung C&T and lowering the stock price of Samsung SDS during the merger process, in order to help Lee Jae-yong inherit the management rights at the lowest cost and strengthen his influence within Samsung Group." The South Korean prosecutors filed a lawsuit in September 2020. Later, the prosecution also accused Lee Jae-yong and other Samsung executives of "allegedly arbitrarily changing the accounting standards of Samsung BioLogics in 2015, inflating the company's market value by 45 trillion Korean won," and sued them. The South Korean prosecutors charged Lee Jae-yong with violating the Capital Markets Act and dereliction of duty, and requested the court to sentence him to 5 years in prison and a fine of 500 million Korean won. In February of last year, the Seoul Central District Court made a first-instance judgment on the case, stating that "the purpose of the merger of the two companies under Samsung Group is not limited to strengthening Lee Jae-yong's influence within the group," "overall, it cannot be considered improper behavior, and there is no evidence to prove that this has caused losses to shareholders. All accusations in this case lack concrete evidence," and therefore acquitted Lee Jae-yong and others, with the prosecution appealing the judgment. In February of this year, the Seoul High Court pronounced its second-instance judgment on the case, upholding the first-instance judgment and declaring Lee Jae-yong innocent. Lee Jae-yong, 57, joined Samsung Electronics in 1991 and became Vice Chairman in 2012, and in 2018 he was appointed as the head of Samsung Group by the Fair Trade Commission. In October 2020, his father, then Chairman Lee Kun-hee, passed away.