Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee is the head of the conglomerate in name only. He suffered a heart attack in May 2014 and has been under medical care ever since. His son, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, has been running the conglomerate since then. However, he has never been formally designated as the Samsung Group Head. That might change in April next year.
The Fair Trade Commission of South Korea has pointed out that Lee Kun-hee remains the chairman of the Samsung Group even though he hasn't been able to conduct management activities for over three years now.
Samsung Group Head
The FTC has now decided to devise improvement measures to designate persons as heads of Korean conglomerates. The purpose behind this is to reflect reality and adherence to the relevant laws.
The Fair Trade Act explains that the head of a business group is a person who controls it. There's no separate qualification requirement in the act for an individual to become eligible for the position.
An amendment has now been proposed to the Fair Trade Act in the country's National Assembly. The amendment seeks to block those who are neither sensible nor able to conduct economic activities independently from becoming heads of business groups.
“We have not yet determined whether to restrict business group heads’ qualifications through an amendment to the Fair Trade Act or other ways,” said an FTC official. It's planning to finalize this before April when it's due to issue the list of large enterprises in the country.
It's now expected that before that list is released in April, the Samsung Group head will be changed from chairman Lee Kun-hee to vice chairman Lee Jae-yong.
