CJ chairman thinks rival spies on him

Police said Saturday they have questioned an employee of Samsung C&T for allegedly conducting illegal surveillance of the chief of CJ Group, amid a growing family feud over inheritances at Samsung, South Korea’s biggest conglomerate.

The summons came as CJ Group sued the 42-year-old Samsung employee, identified only by his surname Kim, for allegedly following its chairman Lee Jae-hyun late last month after the chairman’s father filed an inheritance suit against the chief of Samsung Group, Lee Kun-hee.

In the suit filed in mid-February, the father of Jae-hyun, Lee Maeng-hee, who is the elder brother of the Samsung chief, demanded a large amount of stocks he claimed the Samsung head secretly had incorporated into his assets.

The lawsuit calls for the Samsung chief to return 8.2 million shares of Samsung Life Insurance, worth more than 700 billion won ($627 million).

He claimed that his younger brother concealed the bulk of group stocks, which their late father and Samsung founder Lee Byung-chull held under borrowed names.

CJ Group claimed that closed-circuit television footage showed Kim circling the residence of Lee in central Seoul in different cars and accused him of obstructing its chairman’s official duties.

Officials at the Jungbu Police Station said they asked why Kim had roamed around the CJ Group chairman’s house and whether he attempted to shadow him.

Samsung officials denied any link to the employee’s tailing of the CJ Group chairman.

Yonhap