"Samsung chairman Lee Sang-hoon jailed for union sabotage", 17 December 2019

A South Korean court has sentenced Samsung Electronics board chairman Lee Sang-hoon to 18 months in prison for sabotaging labour union activities.

...25 other defendants were [also] convicted of violating labour union-related laws.

Prosecutors said Samsung executives had used several tactics to target union activities, including closing sub-contracted firms with active unions.

Samsung has not yet commented on the ruling...

The case... focused largely on efforts by officials to undermine union activities at the customer service unit when Lee was serving as chief financial officer.

Other tactics... to target unions included finding out sensitive information about union members to convince them to leave, and delaying negotiations between labour unions and management...

"While Lee claims there were many areas he did not know much about, [we] cannot give him immunity only due to the fact that [he] was not aware of the peripheral areas," the judge said...