Ex-Samsung chief gets suspended sentence

SEOUL, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- The Seoul High Court gave the former Samsung chairman a three-year suspended sentence and a hefty fine for illegal bond deals, South Korean officials said.

The court fined Lee Kun-hee 110 million won, or $89.2 million, for transactions that caused huge financial losses to a Samsung affilate, CNN reported.

Lee, 67, was convicted of illegally forcing the affiliate, Samsung SDS, to sell bonds with warrants to his son and daughters at a large discount in 1999. The move cost the company a reported 22.7 billion won, or $18 million.

Samsung is South Korea's largest conglomerate with sales of nearly $160 billion and exports of $70 billion in 2008, accounting for about one-fifth of all South Korean exports, the Yonhap News Agency said.