SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea’s President Yoon Suk-yeol granted a pardon for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee to help overcome a “national economic crisis”, South Korea’s Justice Ministry said on Friday.
The pardon is largely symbolic, with Lee already out on parole after serving 18 months in jail for bribery relating to his time leading the world’s biggest smartphone and memory-chip maker.
However, it should mean Lee will be able to carry out business activities more freely and could herald some big moves from Samsung, analysts said.
“With urgent needs to overcome the national economic crisis, we carefully selected economic leaders who lead the national growth engine through active technology investment and job creation to be pardoned,” Justice Minister Han Dong Hoon told a briefing.
Also pardoned was Lotte Group chairman Shin Dong-bin.
(Reporting by Joyce Lee, Soo-hyang Choi, Heekyong YangEditing by Shri Navaratnam)
