SEOUL – Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee was found not guilty by a Seoul court on Monday of accounting fraud and stock manipulation in a 2015 merger of Samsung subsidiaries that prosecutors said was designed to consolidate his control over the technology group.

Prosecutors asked for a five-year sentence last November. Lee denied wrongdoing and argued that he and other executives acted on the belief that the merger would benefit shareholders.

Prosecutors could still appeal against the surprising verdict.

The sentence prevents a return to prison for Lee, who was convicted in 2017 of bribing a friend of former President Park Geun-hye. He served 18 months of a 30-month sentence and was pardoned in 2022 by current President Yoon Suk Yeol, saying the government said he was needed to overcome a “national economic crisis”.

In the merger case, prosecutors accused Lee, 55, and other former executives of violating the Capital Markets Act to engineer a merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries that went against the interests of minority shareholders.

Before the merger, the Lee family and related entities controlled Cheil, but not Samsung C&T, which was the major shareholder of Samsung Electronics – the crown jewel of the Samsung group.

South Korea’s biggest conglomerates are still owned and controlled by their founding families, and the public has long vacillated between anger at their many scandals and recognition that families are responsible for much of the country’s economic success.

As of the end of September, the Lee family and related entities owned 20.7% of Samsung Electronics.