Lotte chief gets suspended jail sentence

A South Korean court handed Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin (pictured) a suspended prison term after a year-long trial in which prosecutors charged top executives at the South Korean conglomerate with embezzlement and breach of fiduciary duty.

Lotte Group founder Shin Kyuk-ho, 95, was sentenced to four years in prison in a verdict announced Friday in a Seoul Central District Court. Shin Dong-joo, elder son of the founder, was acquitted. 

The convictions and sentencing of executives at South Korea’s fifth-largest conglomerate are among a series of penalties the government has delivered following sweeping probes of the country’s largest family-controlled business groups, known as chaebol.

Shin Kyuk-ho’s four-year term is shorter than that of Samsung Group’s de-facto chief Jay Y. Lee, who was sentenced to five-year prison term in August in a bribery case he is appealing. 

The punishments also underscore the resolve of President Moon Jae-in, who took power after a corruption scandal felled his predecessor, to show less leniency toward crimes committed by owners of family-run conglomerates.