Lawyers for Lee Kun-hee said on Wednesday the chairman of Samsung Electronics had been chosen by his father, the Samsung Group's founder, to lead the conglomerate and so was free to transfer shares of group companies to maintain control. Lee, South Korea's richest man, is defending three lawsuits from relatives who claim around $1 billion of Samsung assets they say Lee inherited and hid in nominee accounts.
There's little chance Lee will lose control of Samsung, one of South Korea's chaebol - the sprawling family-owned industrial groups that wield huge economic and political clout - but the public spat over a small part of the Samsung fortune may dent his plans for a smooth handover to his only son, Jay Lee.
In opening remarks before a packed Seoul Central District Court, Lee's lawyers argued that the group's founder, Lee Byung-chull, made it clear before he died in 1987 that Lee would inherit his shares in Samsung Electronics and Samsung Life, an insurance company at the heart of a web of group cross-shareholdings. "The Samsung founder had said clearly he will have Lee Kun-hee take over from him to lead the group ... and that naturally includes his will to transfer shares (of key Samsung companies) to the defendant to ensure his management control," Yun Jae-yun, a former judge representing Lee, told the court.
Lawyers for Lee's elder brother, Maeng-hee, who is in his 80s, a sister and another relative said they did not know until last year about $3.8 billion of assets that Lee inherited. The lawyers, from Yoon and Yang, said Samsung's founder had never said that any plan for Lee to assume control of the group included inheriting all his father's assets.