SEOUL: The heir to the Samsung Empire arrived at court on Friday for a retrial over a sprawling corruption scandal that threatens to disrupt management at the world’s biggest smartphone and memory chip maker.

Lee Jae-yong is vice-chairman of Samsung Electronics — where profits have been falling for months — and was jailed for five years in 2017 for bribery, embezzlement and other offenses in connection with the scandal that brought down South Korean President Park Geun-hye.