Samsung Names Jay Y. Lee as Executive Chairman

Jay Y. Lee, Samsung’s de facto chief, has been appointed the company’s executive chairman, the company’s board of directors announced Wednesday. The move arrives a small much more than two months soon after Lee was granted a presidential pardon for his position in a corruption scandal that rocked South Korea.

The appointment was granted because of to “the latest unsure worldwide small business environment and the pressing want for more powerful accountability and small business steadiness,” the board claimed in a statement.

Samsung declared Lee’s appointment after posting a 31% drop in 3rd-quarter revenue, its first 12 months-about-year quarterly drop in virtually 3 many years.

Lee was Samsung’s vice chairman and had acted as the company’s de facto head since his father, Lee Kun-Hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014. He confronted up to 12 many years in prison after getting charged with bribery in 2017. The circumstance was part of a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of previous South Korean President Park Geun-hye. 

Lee was granted parole and unveiled from prison in August 2021, following serving two and a 50 % decades on a five-year sentence on bribery, perjury and embezzlement costs. The pardon, granted in August 2022 by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, was broadly noticed as a largely symbolic shift that would make it possible for him to take manage of the electronics giant.

Lee had always denied the allegations from him in courtroom, but his convictions would have prevented him from getting able to work for five decades and limited his overseas vacation below Korean law.

Samsung reps did not straight away answer to a ask for for added remark.