SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korean prosecutors will appeal to the Supreme Court after an appeals court found Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee not guilty on all charges stemming from a 2015 merger, prosecutors said.
Lee has faced long-running legal risks from criminal cases at a time when Samsung Electronics, the world’s top memory chip and smartphone maker, grapples with growing competition and lacklustre stock prices.
Samsung declined to comment.
The Seoul High Court upheld on February 3 a lower court’s ruling dismissing all the charges from a case involving a $8-billion, 2015 merger between two Samsung affiliates that prosecutors said was designed to cement Lee’s control of the tech giant.
Lee had denied wrongdoing, saying he never intended to “deceive or damage investors for personal gain”.
The appeals court dismissed prosecutors’ claims that the merger caused financial losses to minority shareholders.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee. Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Mark Potter)
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