Samsung vice chairman denies bribery allegation over merger of subsidiaries

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Tuesday denied bribery allegations over last year's controversial merger of two subsidiaries of Samsung Group, South Korea's largest family-run conglomerate.

"The merger of two companies has nothing to do with the transfer (of management control) for me and any other," Lee told lawmakers during a parliamentary hearing for the corruption scandal involving President Park Geun-hye and her longtime confidante.

Lee and other chiefs of the country's major conglomerates attended the hearing on allegations that they decided to donate tens of millions of U.S. dollars to two nonprofit foundations controlled by Choi Soon-sil who has been charged with abuse of power and extortion.

Samsung Group is suspected of making donations to the foundations and bribing Choi in return for support from the national pension fund in last year's controversial merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries to create a de-facto holding company of the group.

Lee said Samsung's donation was not made in a bid to receive any business favor or support, noting that President Park just asked for the donation to flourish culture and develop sports during his face-to-face meeting with the president.

In July last year, President Park held an open meeting with major conglomerate heads and met separately one-by-one with some of the chiefs. Lee admitted that he had met privately with President Park twice in July last year and in February this year.

The merger was extremely crucial to Vice Chairman Lee to inherit management control of the biggest family-run conglomerate from his father Chairman Lee Kun-hee who has been hospitalized for over two and a half years on heart attack.

Samsung's founding family has been criticized for controlling overall group subsidiaries with a handful of equities through the complicated web of cross-shareholdings. Enditem