I had no decision-making power, Samsung heir tells corruption trial

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Lee Jae-yong, the 49-year-old heir to the world's top smartphone maker Samsung had no role in decision-making at the wider group, he told a court Wednesday in his trial for corruption over the scandal that brought down South Korea's last president.

It was the first time that the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics and the son of the Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, had been interrogated by prosecutors since the high-profile proceedings began in March.

Lee and four other Samsung executives are accused of paying a total of 43 billion won (37.74 million dollars) to organizations linked to Choi Soon-Sil, then-President Park’s confidante, to ensure the government’s backing for a merger of two Samsung units in 2015.

The takeover deal was seen as a key step in ensuring an untroubled power transfer to Lee from his father, who had suffered a heart attack in 2014 and remains incapacitated.

Lee Jae-yong (R), the vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, is escorted by prison guards as he arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul on August 2, 2017. /AFP Photo

At the time the group's elite Future Strategy Office dictated the vast company's overall direction and major business decisions.

"I have never attended a single one" of the group's elite Future Strategy Office regular Wednesday weekly meetings, he said. "I have no idea what is being discussed."

Lee said he was "directly and actively involved in the management decisions at Samsung Electronics", but his knowledge of other industries "was far more limited" and he "just followed the advice" of the Future Strategy Office over the merger.

Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone and memory chip maker, is also South Korea's largest business group with revenues equivalent to about 20 percent of the country's GDP.

(Source: AFP, Reuters)