12/01/2017 World Business Report

From boardroom chief to commander in chief.

Trump hands control of his business empire to his sons.

But ethical questions will remain for America's

Plus - "I apologize to the South Korean people".

Samsung boss Jay Y Lee is questioned in a growing corruption scandal

I'm Sally Bundock - we'll be live in Seoul in a moment

we are in the US where, as you've been hearing,

President-elect Donald Trump has been dismissing claims Russia holds

compromising material on him, calling it "fake news".

The row has even threatened to overshadow controversy over

Mr Trump's business dealings and concerns he will face a major

conflict of interest once in the White House.

On Wednesday he said he'd hold onto his business empire but hand

"complete control" to his two eldest sons, Donald Junior and Eric.

So will it be enough to silence the critics?

The Trump Organisation is not listed on the stock market so it doesn't

But according to private company research firm Privco the real

estate, hotel and leisure empire made revenues of $9.5

According to Bloomberg - as well as billions in assets,

the organisation has some $600 million of debt,

owed to scores of financial institutions.

Another potential source of conflict.

It employs an estimated 22,000 people in more than 20 countries,

raising questions over foreign policy But Mr Trump's lawyer says

"no new foreign deals will be made whatsoever" while he is president.

She says over 30 pending deals have been cancelled,

instantly losing the family millions of dollars.

And an ethics advisor will be appointed to approve all dealings

that might raise conflict of interest concerns or be seen

to exploit the office of the presidency.

In order to address issues of conflict of interest the

President-elect is said he will establish a trust and will turn over

management of his organisation to that trust. The trust will be run by

his two sons and a trusted adviser. The President-elect has also said

there will not be any new international deals made by the

Trump organisation while he is in office and any new domestic deals

will be subject to the approval of a self appointed as its adviser that

will be also part of this trust. Have a listen to a little bit of

what the President-elect said in a press conference about his business

interests. My two sons who are right here, Don and Eric, are going to be

running the company. They are going to be running it in a very

professional manner. They're not gonna discuss it with me. Again, I

don't have to do this. They're not gonna disgusted with me. The

question is whether this will be enough to silence its critics. And

the early indication is that it probably won't. The biggest problem,

of course, being that Mr Trump has not fully divest it and many people

believe that in order for this to really work, the President-elect

would actually have to sell any of his business interests. Further,

establishing a trust with his two sons at the helm doesn't really give

enough distance between the highest office in the land and the Trump

organisation. So many questions remain. I am joined by Stephanie. Is

this enough? It does not even come close to being enough and he knows

this. Congress knows this and the press knows this. So what will be

interesting will be how will we hold him to account on this? Every other

president in modern history has put their assets into a blind trust. It

is completely fair to say that that is difficult in this case because

his empire is so massive. It is about real estate as opposed to just

shares. So we are in uncharted territory with the kind of assets

that he has. But the idea that this is going to be transferred to his

children and that guarantees a sense of neutrality for him is proposed

is. You can imagine the family discussions over dinner. But the

independent ethics adviser, whoever he or she will be, will that be held

full or is that just tokenism? Exactly. What power will this person

have caught? If the President-elect is the boss for this person, they

can make advice or comments but that is the question here and this is the

detail we are lacking. The other issue of course, there was a lack of

detail in the press conference about anything else and market around the

world are reacting in different ways. The dollar has fallen quite a

lot over the last couple of days. We have seen shares falling in Japan.

There is concern that he is still not saying much about his policies

are for businesses in and outside the US it is difficult for them to

know what his presidency will mean. There is one thing I think has

become abundantly clear and that will continue well before his

inauguration which is this desire to seek jobs kept in the United States.

Any plans that any specifically American companies had to take jobs

outside will be criticised. We have already seen him happily and

deliberately use his Twitter account to criticise companies whose share

prices have been collapsed. Every board and the United States is going

to be factoring that into their risk management strategy. They do very

much for coming and. We will see you again soon.

We are also in South Korea where technology giant Samsung has

been battling to rebuild its reputation after its top

of the range phone had to be withdrawn following a spate

In the last few hours, a new setback for the firm,

as boss Jay Y Lee was called in for questioning in a widening

corruption investigation that has already seen the president

Mr Lee is seen as the heir apparent of the firm,

which he has been running since his father Lee Kun-Hee had

Investigators want to know if the company gave millions

of dollars to a friend of the South Korean president

Let's talk to the BBC's Stephen Evans in Seoul.

We have heard a lot of apology but nobody admitting to wrong doing so

far. Is that correct? Yes. It's one of those... Connoisseurs of

apologies will relish this case. It is one of the cases where somebody

is saying sorry but I am innocent. The apology today was I am very,

very sorry for creating a bad image. The President's apology was for

trusting, I am very sorry but I trusted people too much. So

apologies, yes... Admissions of guilt, absolutely not. These remain

allegations which are being investigated. Very serious

allegations because a lot of outside shareholders from Samsung, people

who have shares in Samsung but who are outside the family as saying

this merger of two companies back in 2015 within Samsung was basically so

the family could tighten its control of the company and was not actually

to the benefit of shareholders in general. So if the pension fund, the

third biggest in the world, remember, stuck its votes behind the

family because the family had done private deal with the President to

give money to the President's friend, that would be a pretty

serious matter. The difficulty is it's an allegation of nudge and a

wink corruption. This is not cash in brown envelopes at, it is meetings

with only two people present doing deals. That is the allegation and

that is very, very difficult to prove. In the long run, how damaging

could this be for Samsung given its recent history which, as we

mentioned, exploding phone and everything, but they have been so

many other issues for Samsung as playful is not who knows. But my

feeling is not damaging at all, not very much damaging. You know, people

purchase phones because they like the phone. And there is a history of

corruption, I think that is the word we can use, at the top of the

companies in this country. A lot of the political presidents have been

found guilty of corruption but you get the sense that they do not

really feel that is a serious crime. It is sometimes even they go to jail

and sometimes they are pardoned, sometimes they are not. In this

case, let us assume that he is found guilty and goes to jail, the company

will go on, the phones will keep coming, people will purchase or they

don't. Thank you very much. Quite interesting. Let's have quick look

at markets in Asia so you have a sense of how the day is progressing

so far. Obviously that is not the market at all. That is an apology

for interrupting in our programme. We don't need that today,

thankfully. Headed south today. We have Japan under pressure because

the yen is going up in value. The dollar is down in reaction to the

press conference from Donald Trump. More on that in a moment as we

review the press. I