Lee Kyu-chul, spokesman for the special prosecution office, told a news briefing the office would decide soon whether to make a second arrest warrant request for the Samsung Group chief. He did not comment on other details, including what Jay Y. Lee said during questioning.
Prosecutors would also consider whether to seek arrest warrants for four other Samsung Group executives identified as suspects, the spokesman added. The prosecutor’s office had previously said it would not seek arrests for any Samsung executives other than Lee.
In January, the special prosecutor sought a warrant to arrest Samsung chief Lee after questioning him for more than 22 hours, accusing him of paying bribes to win the state pension fund’s support for the controversial merger of Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries Inc.
However, a Seoul court rejected that request.
Chang Choong-ki, deputy head of Samsung Group’s corporate strategy office, known informally as its “control tower”, was questioned as a suspect on Sunday and returned home hours later.
Shares in Samsung Electronics were down 0.9 percent by 0600 GMT on Monday, compared with a flat wider market.
“The issue will have limited impact on share prices, except if the worst-case scenario happens, since political issues previously did not have a big influence on share prices or earnings,” said Bae Sung-young, a stock analyst at Hyundai Securities.
($1 = 1,152.5300 won)
