Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong leaves the High Court after he was acquitted on Feb. 3, 2025. / News1

Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong was acquitted in an appellate trial on Feb. 3, clearing him of stock manipulation and accounting fraud charges related to the controversial merger between two Samsung affiliates in 2015. This ruling comes nearly a year after the initial verdict found him not guilty of all 19 charges in February last year.

The Seoul High Court, presided over by Judge Baek Kang-jin, upheld the verdict of the first trial, acquitting Lee of all 19 charges, including unfair trading, stock price manipulation, accounting fraud, and other irregularities during the 2015 merger of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T. Ten former Samsung Group executives, including Choi Gee-sung and Jang Choong-gi, were also found not guilty.

The court examined key issues such as the merger ratio and timing of Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T and whether Samsung Biologics had control over Samsung Bioepis before rejecting the prosecution’s charges. Regarding the accounting fraud allegations related to Samsung Biologics, the court ruled, “Samsung Biologics should have disclosed that it could lose control over Samsung Bioepis if Biogen exercised its call option, but this fact does not appear to have been deliberately concealed.”

The court also dismissed the prosecution’s claim that reports related to the merger were manipulated to facilitate Lee’s succession at Samsung Group.

Following Lee’s acquittal in the first trial, prosecutors submitted 2,144 additional pieces of evidence during the appeals process and modified the indictment to include preliminary accounting fraud charges, citing an August ruling by the Seoul Administrative Court that found accounting irregularities at Samsung Biologics in 2015.

However, the court ruled that “while there were issues with accounting practices in 2015, it is difficult to prove that there was criminal intent.”

Lee was initially indicted in September 2020 on 19 charges, including violations of the Capital Markets Act, External Audit Act, and business misconduct. Prosecutors alleged that during the 2015 merger between Cheil Industries and Samsung C&T, Lee manipulated stock prices to secure his succession and strengthen his control over Samsung Group. They also accused him of fraudulent accounting practices at Samsung Biologics, then a subsidiary of Cheil Industries.