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| Samsung office buildings in Seocho-dong, southern Seoul / Korea Times |
By Oh Young-jin
Korea is at war with Samsung Group with a ferocity that sometimes shows as if it won't be over until one of the two is done away with.
The irony is that Samsung is the lifeline of Korean Inc., being the biggest employer, exporter, taxpayer, charity giver and the single largest pillar to support the stock market, possibly all at once.
If it were the firm of another country, it would be treated like a goose laying a golden egg. By extension of this logic, are Koreans getting greedy enough to kill the goose and get all the gold inside immediately?
From Samsung's perspective, it is only natural to ask why it is the victim of its own success.
Instead of answering these questions, let's look at three battles the nation and its biggest corporation are fighting, because we pretty much know the stock answers to these questions ― historic collusion between the state and Samsung and other chaebol, and the people's sense of ownership to chaebol on the belief that the corporate behemoths have grown on the sweat, blood and tears of taxpayers.
Also in the mix is the public's resentment toward the misconduct of chaebol owners and their offspring. Lump them together and it is a love-hate relationship with these moneyed families.
But the ongoing war against Samsung could be different from the entanglements the nation has had before with chaebol _ not business as usual.
The first prong of the war is over the financial authorities' investigation into 27 borrowed-name accounts that belong to the ailing head of the conglomerate, Lee Kun-hee, at four brokerages.
Lee was believed to have inherited the money in the accounts from his father Lee Byung-chull, before real name notification was made mandatory in financial transactions in December 1993. He should have reported it and paid taxes.
The probe came after police named Lee as a suspect in a tax evasion case, accusing him of managing 400 billion won in 260 accounts held by executives at Samsung.
It's often the unwritten rule that when a person involved in a serious case dies or is rendered incapacitated, it gets closed. This rule doesn't apply to Lee, who has been in coma since he had a heart attack in 2014.
Then, there is another front regarding alleged payoffs made to former President Lee Myung-bak for his lawyers' fees to the tune of billions of won in a legal entanglement.
Lee Hak-soo, the ailing Lee's right-hand man, reportedly told prosecutors that Samsung had made payments in return for an amnesty granted to Lee, who was slapped with three-year imprisonment with its execution suspended for five years for tax evasion and breach of trust in August 2009.
Four months later, Lee was put on a one-person list for a presidential pardon and granted full amnesty in return for his help as an International Olympic Committee (IOC) member in securing the right to host the Winter Olympics. Korea won the right and the ongoing PyeongChang Olympics is the result.
The Samsung involvement came out as part of the ongoing probe into corruption by former President Lee, who will be summoned soon after the Olympics are over.
Sounds familiar? Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong spent a year in jail for alleged buying influence from Park Geun-hye, Lee's successor who was impeached, ousted from office and is now being tried for corruption.
The former President Lee was responsible for a corruption probe into his predecessor Roh Moo-hyun; and Roh's supporters blame Lee for leading him to commit suicide. Roh was the incumbent President Moon Jae-in's mentor. Recently when Lee called the investigation into him a "political vendetta," Moon expressed his deep resentment for such a claim.
Finally, the only son of the bedridden chairman is bearing the brunt of an onslaught for his alleged role in bribing former President Park and her "private deputy" Choi Soon-sil. He is now out on a suspended sentence pending a Supreme Court ruling.
The Moon Jae-in government is not naive enough to call out the slogan of chaebol reform but its all-out catch-all "campaign to liquidate the bad old heritage" no doubt includes economic justice, at the center of which lies Samsung.
Against this background, the public's wish to see the delivery of justice on Samsung ― the rule of equality before the law ― is set to boil over. A majority of people disagree with the high court's decision to let the young Lee walk free.
Walking through the three Samsung cases fails to give any new answers but takes us back to the old question: Are we risking killing the golden goose to fix its tainted feathers? I recommend serious thinking about this before answering the question.
