Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on July 17, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 22, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleSouth Korea wins UK appeal in Samsung merger arbitration, challenging Elliott's $100M claim. Jay Y. Lee cleared of fraud, removing legal risks.
LONDON (Reuters) -South Korea on Thursday won its latest appeal in its dispute with U.S. hedge fund Elliott over the 2015 merger of two affiliates of Samsung, shortly after the electronics group's Chairman Jay Y. Lee was cleared by South Korea's top court.
The South Korean government was ordered to pay Elliott around $100 million by the Netherlands-based Permanent Court of Arbitration in 2023.
Elliott had sued over the role played by South Korea's National Pension Service in approving the $8 billion merger between Samsung C&T, in which Elliott was a minority stakeholder, and Cheil Industries.
South Korea sought to challenge the tribunal's decision at London's High Court, arguing the tribunal did not have jurisdiction under a free trade agreement with the U.S., but its case was rejected last year.
The Court of Appeal, however, allowed South Korea's appeal and sent the case back to the High Court, to decide the challenge to the arbitration tribunal's jurisdiction.
Its ruling came hours after Lee was ultimately cleared of accounting fraud and stock manipulation over the 2015 merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries.
South Korea's Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of prosecutors' appeal against a Seoul court's 2024 decision to clear Lee, removing a long-running legal risk for the head of the country's biggest company Samsung Electronics.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin, Editing by Paul Sandle)
South Korea won its appeal in the dispute with Elliott over the 2015 merger, with the Court of Appeal sending the case back to the High Court to decide on the arbitration tribunal's jurisdiction.
The Netherlands-based Permanent Court of Arbitration ordered South Korea to pay Elliott around $100 million in 2023.
Elliott sued over the National Pension Service's approval of the $8 billion merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, where Elliott was a minority stakeholder.
Lee was cleared of accounting fraud and stock manipulation related to the merger, which removed a long-running legal risk for the head of Samsung.
South Korea argued that the tribunal did not have jurisdiction under a free trade agreement with the U.S., but this argument was initially rejected by the High Court.
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