Samsung Group heir Lee Jae-yong has told the Seoul Central District Court that he is innocent of bribery and other criminal charges levelled against him by special prosecutors, at his first court hearing on Thursday.
Lee was arrested in connection with an influence-peddling scandal that has resulted in the country's parliament voting to impeach President Park Geun-hye.
The Samsung Electronics deputy chairman was not in court and made the assertions through his lawyers, Yonhap reported.
They said Lee's instructions to group executives after he held meetings in 2015 and 2016 with Park remained unclear and urged the special prosecutors not to leap to conclusions when handling the case.
{loadposition sam08}The legal team queried how the special counsel team members were participating in the hearing as the term of the special probe panel had ended on 28 February.
The hearing ended after an hour, with the two legal teams involved in fierce confrontations.
The court is expected to give a ruling in the case towards the end of May.
The special investigating team, that looked into the allegations against Lee, suspects that he either handed over or promised to give 43.3 billion won (US$38.3 million) to Park's friend, Choi Soon-il, provided there was government backing for two Samsung affiliates to merge in 2015.
This merger has been said to be critical for transfer of the Samsung leadership from Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Kun-hee to Lee Jae-yong, his only son.
The Samsung heir is also accused of donating money to help the Federation of Korean Industries create two non-profits which were under Choi's control. He has denied this charge.
Lee has also denied that Samsung received favours from the Fair Trade Commission in the process. The probe team suspects that the FTC was forced by Park to change guidelines so Samsung could effect the merger.
He has denied he lobbied South Korea's financial regulator, the Financial Services Commission, to list Samsung Biologics, the group's bio-pharmaceutical unit, which had posted a deficit three years running.
The scandal and its fallout comes after a year in which Samsung had to stop production of its flagship Galaxy Note7 after numerous devices combusted. Samsung also faced issues with washing machines and had to order a recall.
As a result of safety measures introduced after the Note7 fiasco, Samsung did not announce its new flagship, the Galaxy S8, at the Mobile World Congress which was held in Barcelona last week. In the past such models have been unveiled at this event. The announcement was first said to be delayed until 29 March, but is now said to be scheduled for April 28.