Yesterday Financial Regulation Matters was a year old and, coincidentally, a number of stories covered throughout the first year of the blog have had some significant developments over the past few days; so, in today’s post, we will have a whistle-stop tour of these developments and ask how the recent developments may impact upon a number of parties concerned with these impactful business stories. Samsung Heir Released from Prison On the 25 th August 2017, we assessed the impact of the changing political, legal, and business landscape within South Korea with the massive news that Lee Jae-yong, the heir to the massive Samsung empire, was to be imprisoned for five years on counts of bribery, embezzlement, and perjury amongst a whole host of criminal infractions as part of his attempt to consolidate his, and his company’s position as one of the leading ‘ chaebols ’. The news today, that Lee’s sentence was reduced to a suspended sentence after just a year in prison , should b...

Today’s post focuses on the largest business story today which is the news that Lee Jae-yong, the vice-chairman of Samsung and its de-facto head, has been jailed for five years after being found guilty of bribery, embezzlement, and perjury amongst a host of other offences. This massive news for South Korea, however, has the potential to fundamentally alter its environment in terms of the relationship between the massive family-owned conglomerates that dominate the South Korean landscape, and the Government. Yet, whether or not that comes to fruition is the focus for this piece because, as is usually the case, a realistic assessment suggests that the favoured outcome may not be attained. Today’s sentencing of the heir to the sprawling Samsung Empire, Lee Jae-yong, marks the accumulation of a string of events that began in 2016 with the investigation into the then-President Park Geun-hye. Very briefly, Park Geun-hye, the country’s first female President and daughter of the Milita...