All seems to be not well in the Samsung camp as its Chief Jay. Y. Lee may be arrested in relation to bribery charges. The special prosecutor's office of South Korea said that it would lay out an arrest warrant for Lee.
Samsung is one of the world's largest tech conglomerates and the corruption scandal may hit the company hard. Jay. Y. Lee, the Chief of Samsung Group, was questioned by officers for 22 hours, as they probed into a scandal which has infiltrated the highest ranks of power in the company.
An official at the Seoul district court said that the arrest warrant must be approved by a court, before President, Park Geun-hye could be arrested. The hearing is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 18, but no official comment from Samsung was forthcoming.
The special prosecutors' office alleged that Lee had paid a total sum amounting to $36.42 million (in U.S. currency,) to Choi Soon-sil, who is a close aide of impeached President Park Geun-hye.
Lee had become the Chief of the company in 2014. He has also been charged with embezzling money and committing perjury, according to the prosecution's warrant.
"The special prosecutors' office, in making this decision to seek an arrest warrant, determined that while the country's economic conditions are important, upholding justice takes precedence," said Lee Kyu-chul, a spokesman for the office.
Samsung, however, denied these accusations and stressed on the fact that he was innocent.
The officers are also investigating the matter by seeing whether Samsung-supported business initiatives were linked to the National Pension Service's (NPS) controversial decision to approve and support the $8 billion merging of two of Samsung's affiliates.
The chairman of the NPS, Moon Hyung-pyo, was charged with abusing power and falsely testifying in court. The charges were laid down last week.
Park remains the country's President, even though all her powers and privileges have been suspended. She awaits the decision of the Constitutional Court to forcefully eject her from the Office. If this is the case, she will become the first woman to be removed by force from the President's post.
Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of the President, has been accused of pressuring big companies, like Samsung, to provide monetary contributions to many of the President's non-profit schemes.
She remains in detention with accusations of abusing her power and attempting fraud, but denied any allegations when she appeared in the Constitutional Court on Monday, Jan. 16. She has also denied having any knowledge about the merger of the two Samsung affiliates in 2015. The impeached President also asserted that she did not know anything about the controversial merger of 2015.
She has also pleaded innocent, but admitted that she had been callous in her friendship with Choi.
A lot of political strife and turmoil has been pestering South Korea for months and the latest jolt which the country received was the impeachment of its President Park Geun-hye.
As a backlash of the scandal, shares of Samsung Electronics suffered losses and the rates went down by 2.3 percent.
