Lee Kun-Hee has avoided prison with a three year suspended sentence on tax evasion charges. He will, however, be forced to pay a more than $100 million fine. That hurts, no doubt, but he'll hardly miss it out of his $4.9 billion dollar net work.

The final numbers are quite a step down from the seven years behind bars and $400 million fine prosecutors had been aiming for. While it was suspected that Lee's had been using the extra cash for political bribes, prosecutors were never quite able to make the case.

On the other hand... Lee's sentence sure makes it look like this guy got the shaft. Nine years in prison? It just goes to show - if you're going to steal money, its always better to steal a whole hell of a lot of it. And be, like, really important.

That helps too.

-- MDT

Labels: bribery, Lee Kun Hee, Samsung, tax evasion