Samsung conglomerate leader Jay Y. Lee yesterday pled guilty in court of unlawful use of a controlled substance, as legal woes continue to haunt the executive even after his release on parole in August following a bribery conviction.
Lee’s release had raised market watchers’ expectations of a flurry of major decisions at crown jewel Samsung Electronics Co and its affiliates, including the location of a US$17 billion chip factory being planned in the US.
However, Lee’s legal troubles continued yesterday at the Seoul Central District Court, where, in a short first hearing on the matter, Lee said he received propofol — a sedative used in anesthesia — 41 times from 2015 through last year.
Photo: AFP
Prosecutors said that the use was under the guise of skin treatment or unrelated to a legitimate treatment.
“This matter originated as for treatment, but I am deeply regretful,” Lee said. “I will ... make sure that this does not happen again,” Lee told the small court of about 15 people.
Prosecutors are seeking a fine of 70 million won (US$58,345) and an additional fee of 17 million won. The ruling is to be announced on Oct. 26.
Under South Korean law, the recipient of a controlled substance deemed to have been administered illegally is liable for prosecution, as well as those who administered the drug.
Staff at a clinic where Lee received the sedative, who are being tried separately, have denied wrongdoing.
Prosecutors were first made aware of the matter last year, but were advised to drop their investigation in March this year by an independent panel reviewing prosecution probes.
They continued to seek a fine as recently as June before another police report of sedative use led the court to order a hearing.
As propofol is less likely to be misused than many other controlled substances, many similar cases of unlawful use have resulted in fines rather than jail terms.
Lee was convicted in January of bribery and embezzlement, and sentenced to 30 months in jail — including a year served before his sentencing.
He was paroled in August, with the presidential office calling for public understanding, citing hope that he would help the country produce “semiconductors and vaccines.”
After his release, Samsung said it would invest 240 trillion won in the next three years in fields such as chips and biopharmaceuticals.
Lee himself has kept a low profile.
Lee is simultaneously on trial accused of stock-price manipulation and accounting fraud related to the US$8 billion merger of two Samsung companies in 2015, with hearings held weekly.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to