Samsung Heir Lee Jae-Yong Re-joins Samsung Board After Pardon From the President

August 12th, South Korea pardoned Samsung vice-chairman Lee Jae-Yong of corruption charges, with the justice ministry stated that the business leader was needed to help overcome national economic crisis. The special pardon became effective as of August 15th, the country’s independence anniversary.

 On Friday, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol cleared the heir to the country’s biggest company of bribery charges. The decision paves the way for Lee to officially take the reins of the world’s biggest maker of memory chips and smartphones. Samsung’s shares rose as much as 1.3% on the day.

 The special presidential pardon comes as the global economy faces successive shocks from rising inflation, trades disruption from Russia invasion to Ukraine and logistics chaos triggered by Communist China’s COVID-zero policy, posing increased threat of uncertainty to export-oriented South Korea Economy.

 Additionally, the geopolitical tensions between the US and Communist China over chip technology also complicate Samsung’s long-term business plans, who has been operating major factories in both US the Communist China. Upon the pardon, Lee is widely expected to expedite major strategic decisions for Samsung from chip making deals to operational governance reforms.

 In August 2021, during his live broadcasts, Miles Guo has mentioned the special pardon of Samsung heir a number of times. And in the last two months, Samsung has accelerated its global footprint in re-structuring, moving factories out of Communist China and expanding its chip making foundry and R&D centres into Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam.