Samsung Group heir Jay Y Lee arrives for a court hearing to review a detention warrant request against him.
Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
The de facto leader of Samsung Group, Jay Y Lee, appeared before a Korean court on Monday, awaiting a ruling on whether new allegations including accounting fraud and stock manipulation will send him back to jail after more than two years of freedom.
Prosecutors on Thursday asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against Lee, culminating a probe into a controversial 2015 merger of two Samsung affiliates that they said helped facilitate Lee’s plan to assume greater control of the group.
The risk of more jail time for Lee who has led the group since his father’s heart attack in 2014, has cast a pall over the sprawling conglomerate and its crown jewel, Samsung Electronics, whose annual revenue alone is equivalent to 12% of South Korea’s GDP.
At Samsung, prior to his father’s heart attack, Jay Y Lee had only small stakes in several affiliates that raised the possibility he could lose control of the group to other shareholders.
