The CEO of Samsung was exonerated of charges of stock manipulation and fraud.

In a decision that might eliminate long-standing legal dangers he has faced from criminal cases, a Seoul appeals court declared Samsung Electronics Chairman Jay Y. Lee not guilty on Monday of accounting fraud and stock manipulation.

The lower court's decision to drop all charges in a 2015 merger case that prosecutors claimed was intended to strengthen Lee's hold on the tech behemoth was supported by the Seoul High Court.

Lee has been distracted by the legal disputes, which have raised doubts about his capacity to guide Samsung Electronics, the leading manufacturer of memory chips and smartphones worldwide, as it struggles with escalating competition and weak stock prices.

"It took a while. With the most recent decision, we hope the defendants will be able to concentrate on their work," Kim You-jin, Lee's attorney, stated following the decision.

After his father, Lee Kun-hee, suffered a heart attack in 2014 that left him in a coma, Lee has been dealing with legal issues for almost ten years, including those resulting from the merger that made his succession possible.

Last year, a lower court exonerated Lee of all allegations about the 2015 $8 billion merger between Samsung C&T and Cheil Industries, two Samsung affiliates.

Citing another August verdict that found Samsung BioLogics, a Cheil Industries company, violated accounting norms by inflating its assets to support the merger, prosecutors later appealed to the Seoul High Court, seeking a five-year prison sentence.

According to the judgment, even as BioLogics' accounting results mirrored financial realities and were founded on logical reasoning and procedures, even though the techniques included "inappropriate acts" like document tampering.