Samsung unethical business practices 2016

Ethical Approach

· Deon

· Neo

Component of Ethics in Corporate

Bribery case of Samsung (to earn favor > unfair competitions)

In November 2016, a raid was conducted in different Samsung’s locations in Korea as it was suspicious for bribing Soon Sil Choi, who was closely associated with South Korea’s president at the time Geun Hee Park. This bribery case was accused to be directly related to the Park government’s approval of a controversial merger Samsung had done back in 2015. In the light of former South Korean president’s bribery scandal, Samsung heir and defacto chief Jae Young Lee had become criminal suspect in this scandal in January 2017. It is noticeable that Jae Young Lee had been acting as Samsung’s chairman since 2014, after his father (and Samsung’s former Chairman) Kun Hee Lee suffered a poor health condition. Samsung heir was accused of bribing about 41 billion won (around 50 million Australian Dollar) to non-profit foundations of run by Soon Sil Choi for political favors. The bribery was taken place as donations in Samsung’s financial record as well as announcement to the public. Moreover, Jae Young Lee had earlier confirmed that Samsung also presented some gifts to Soon Sil Choi’s daughter, which include a horse and money, to support her career. In August 2017, Jae Young Lee was convicted of bribery and jailed for five years.

This was not the first time a well-known Korean company gotten into trouble of bribery. However, this scandal, which happened between the country’s former president and the country’s biggest business conglomerate, has raised the questions about Samsung’s future leadership and corporate governance.

Samsung shares fell by 1% in August 2017, at which Jae Young Lee was officially sentenced for bribery. However, this scandal does not seem to have any larger influence on Samsung financially. The proof is that, Samsung did not only record a profit of 11 trillion for the second quarter 2017 but also released a new product Samsung Galaxy S8 after its recall of Galaxy Note 7.

Environment

However, compared to its scandal of Note 7 explosion, Samsung does not receive much negative feedback from the public for its bribery ethical issue.

Nonetheless, one of the ways Walmart weathered its bribery scandal was by making changes. These changes, which took place amid a several-years-long investigation, included internal restructuring of personnel as well as compliance programs. Other companies have employed similar strategies to recover from reports of high-profile corporate misbehavior, using the discovery of unethical business practices and even criminal activity as opportunities to re-examine existing policy and procedures, and make improvements.

Find some number of charity activities in its 2017 report

http://fortune.com/2017/03/15/samsung-bribery-galaxy-note-7/