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Article snippet: SEOUL, South Korea — More than two decades ago, South Korean prosecutors indicted the chairman of the powerful Samsung conglomerate on charges of bribing the president. He was let off with a suspended sentence and then a presidential pardon. About a decade later, he was indicted again, on tax evasion and embezzlement charges. And again he escaped prison time. The message was clear: Samsung was essentially untouchable, and the family that ran the company wielded the true power in South Korea. On Friday, the country’s courts sent a different message. Lee Jae-yong, the third-generation heir to the Samsung empire, was sentenced to five years in prison over a bribery scandal that has already contributed to the downfall of the country’s former president and shaken the country’s political and economic foundations. It was the most remarkable sentence yet for a South Korean business titan, and a sign that the country is no longer willing to offer its business leaders political impunity in exchange for untrammeled economic growth. Now South Korea and Samsung — the country’s biggest business empire and a global force in the technology industry — are at a turning point. Friday’s verdict could embolden efforts to weaken the hold that major family-run business groups have maintained over one of the world’s most dynamic economies. “Until now, Samsung had always been considered above the law in South Korea,” said You Jong-il, an economist at the KDI School of Public Policy and M... Link to the full article to read more