Samsung boss sued by brother for inheritance

The chairman of South Korea's Samsung Electronics has been sued by his elder brother over a multi-million dollar inheritance, a law firm said today.

Lee Maeng-Hee, 80, has sued Lee Kun-Hee, 70, for the return of a huge number of shares inherited from their late father, a spokesman for the law firm, Hwawoo, told AFP. Hwawoo, which has formed a team of 10 lawyers to represent Maeng-Hee, declined to give details.

Yonhap news agency, citing court records, said the total value of the assets claimed by Maeng-Hee from his brother is around 700 billion won (USD 623 million). It said the assets in dispute are more than eight million shares in Samsung Life Insurance and 20 shares in Samsung Electronics, the flagship company of the country's biggest business group.

Maeng-Hee said that after their father's death in 1987, his younger brother took over the shares which the father had held under the names of other people including Samsung executives.
"The stocks... were assets put in a trust under the name of non-heirs, and they should have been apportioned to the heirs according to law," the elder Lee said in the court documents, according to Yonhap.
It was unclear why the elder brother was filing suit at this time. The Samsung group had no comment on the civil lawsuit.
Lee Kun-Hee was South Korea's richest man in 2010, according to a Forbes Asia list, which estimated his worth at the time at $7.9 billion.