After being charged with tax evasion and breach of trust, Samsung chairman resigns to help company regain public trust. The Lee family retains control of South Korea’s largest business conglomerate.

Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Lee Kun-hee, head of South Korean multinational Samsung, has resigned a few days after charges were laid against him for tax evasion (US$ 190 million) and using a company funds for personal use.

The Samsung executive made the announcement during a nationally televised press conference in which he apologised, taking “full responsibility for everything.”

There is no indication of who might replace Mr Lee in this difficult moment for the company.

In addition to legal and tax matters, prosecutors said Samsung had a lot of "structural problems", including "illicit transfer of management control".

The company knows that it must regain public trust and announced that the investigations underway are “a new starting point” for “reform plans based on advice from various sectors of our society”.

With a global workforce of 254,000 employees, Samsung enjoyed annual profits of more than US.9 billions in 2006 and accounts for nearly a fifth of all South Korean exports.

Son of the founder of Samsung, Mr Lee took over as head of the business in 1987, which has since grown to become the world's largest producer of memory chips.

Despite the problems the Lee family will still remain the ownership of the company.

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• korea
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• investigation
• tax
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• Samsung
• memory
• chips