Headline September 13, 2017/ ''' *SAMSUNG'S* VARNISH SAM-SUNTAN '''

''' *SAMSUNG'S* 

VARNISH SAM-SUNTAN '''

WHILE SAMSUNG IS FAMOUS FOR ITS     -Smartphones and Televisions, the Lee family also controls companies that make-

Ships and Pharmaceuticals, issue Credit Cards and manage Hotels, and Hospitals, among other many, many businesses.

Like other rich families, the Lees maintain control over the Samsung Empire through a complex web of cross-share between their companies rather than through controlling stakes.

Controlling stakes could expose heirs like Mr, Lee to steep inheritance taxes.

Prosecutors said that  Mr. Lee and top Samsung Executives paid..........  $38 million  in bribes to maintain that control without paying taxes.   

MR- LEE ARRANGED THE BRIBES    -during three meetings with South Korea former president, Park Geun-hye, beginning in late 2014-

And they were paid to her confidant, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors say the bribes were designed to win government support for business-deal that merged two Samsung controlled  companies despite opposition from other shareholders.

Through a series of complicated shareholdings, that deal increased Mr. Lee's control of SamSung Electronics.   

Mr. Lee and the attorneys pleaded that the  payments were  signed off on without his knowledge.

In terms of bribes, he told the court, he mostly reads American and Japanese publications instead of South Korean news outlets, leaving him ignorant of what officials he would need to influence to begin with.

''I do receive a summary of daily news, but my work is mostly electronics and  Information Technology,'' he said during the trial, referring to Information Technology.

THE GREAT NATION OF SOUTH KOREA has started to discern that Mastermind or Naif  :  Lee. Jae. Yong, the de-facto leader........

Who had a controlling web of majority ownership and authority *was just not up to the mark under pressure*. A great insight, indeed.

The trial has offered South Koreans their closest glimpse yet of Mr. Lee.

Despite arguably being the country's most powerful business leader,......... Mr. Lee was not as well known as his father, who would make the occasional dramatic gesture and was twice convicted of bribery and tax evasion without going to prison.

In very rare public appearances, Mr. Lee has seemed low-key and awkward, such as the time two years ago when he publicly apologized for an outbreak of  Middle East respiratory syndrome at a Samsung owned hospital.

''In the trial you come away with the impression that he is incompetent or at least he didn't know his own company,'' said Geoffrey Cain, the author of a coming book about Samsung.

''Either way his image is taking a hit, and people are starting to see he's not that good under pressure. He doesn't speak that fluidly, he tends to pace around and look at the floor, or look nervous.

He doesn't come off as a profound and visionary leader like his father was.''

Those who have worked with Mr. Lee describe a man well-mannered and relatively soft-spoken.

He is an avid golfer despite receiving dispensation from military service for back problems related to an equestrian accident.

*Mr. lee rarely visited factories and did not call the shots  day-to-day, according to one former top Samsung official who declined to be named out of concern that he might damage his career by speaking about Mr. Lee*.

Inside and outside the company, he is often compared with his father, who despite his legal troubles was well regarded for improving quality at Samsung Electronics and for making it a major global brand.

Perhaps mindful of the comparisons, Samsung has touted Mr. Lee's own accomplishments, including modifying relationships with American Technology companies like Google and Apple.

But until he became Samsung's de-facto leader he was not known for running a business by himself.

His first high-profile venture was created in 2000, during the dot-com boom, when he had an incubator set up to fund and support a series of start-up investments through Samsung.

Called eSamsung, the venture struggled as the dot-com bubble burst, and shares were eventually bought up by Samsung.

''The only time he took responsibility for profit and losses was eSamsung,'' said Chang Sea-jin,  a professor at the  National University of Singapore,'' and it was a complete disaster.''

At the trial, Mr. Lee has said he tried to live up to the reputation of his father and his grandfather, Samsung founder.

''I've been anxious, and I've struggled under heavy pressure to follow their footsteps and not lead Samsung down the wrong path,'' he told the court this month.

But I missed the biggest part :

*The expectations of people and society on Samsung have grown stricter and bigger. I've learned a lot from the investigations and the trial-

*It's all my fault*.''

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW!  -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!   -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Funds & Boom '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless