South Korean prosecutors have been after Lee for years now. In November of last year, they called for Lee to be sentenced to five years in jail and fined 500 million KRW (the same requests they made today) over charges of violating the Capital Market Act related to an $8 billion merger of Samsung affiliates in 2015. They claimed that the merger assisted Lee in gaining control of the Korean electronics company.
Lee refuted the misconduct allegations during the November 2023 hearing and asserted that the merger process was within the scope of standard operational procedures for the company.