Former Samsung CEOs not guilty in Everland bond case: court

SEOUL, Aug. 27 (Yonhap) -- A Seoul court on Thursday cleared two former top executives of a Samsung affiliate of charges they arranged an illegal bond deal incurring massive losses for the company, ending a 13-year long legal battle.

Huh Tae-hak and Park Ro-bin, former CEOs of Samsung Everland, Samsung Group's
amusement park operator and de-facto holding company, were indicted for helping
the group's former chief Lee Kun-hee issue the company's controvertible bonds
(CBs) at a sub-market price in 1996, allowing Lee's children to become the
largest shareholder.
They were also accused of breach of trust for causing 97 billion won (US$63
million) of losses to their company.
The Seoul High Court found them not guilty, saying that Samsung Everland was not
deemed to have suffered any loss from the bond deals, because its existing
shareholders voluntarily chose not to buy the bonds up for sale at that time.
"The act of issuing CBs does not infringe the interests of the company, as
existing shareholders agreed on the issuance," the court said in a verdict.
Huh and Park had been sentenced to suspended jail terms by district and appellate
courts, but the Supreme Court overruled the guilty verdict in May and ordered the
appellate court to review the case.
In the May ruling, the Supreme Court also acquitted the elder Lee of the wealth
transaction attempt through the controversial Everland bond deals.
Lee was last week convicted of other charges for a similar managerial control
transfer at Samsung SDS, a system integration unit of Samsung Group. He was
handed down a five-year suspended jail term.
The former chairman left his 20-year top management post in April last year, at
the peak of the controversial father-to-son succession of management control.
brk@yna.co.kr