Contrasts: Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Lee Kun-hee

The U.S. is suing Apple. Lee's government pardoned him. Twice.

CEO Cook and Chairman Lee.

FORTUNE -- With Tim Cook scheduled to testify Tuesday before a hostile Senate subcommittee and the Department of Justice's antitrust trial against Apple (AAPL) set to begin the following week, this might be a good time to contrast how the U.S. and South Korean governments each treat their country's most valuable company.

Apple:

• Cook is expected to be questioned sharply next week by Senators who think there's something fishy about the way Apple is holding $102 billion in offshore accounts to avoid paying U.S. taxes on the income. Cook has told interviewers that the money was earned overseas, not in the U.S., and that Apple paid $6 billion in U.S. taxes last year -- more, probably, than any other corporation.
• Apple has been charged, along with five publishers, with conspiring to raise the prices of e-books in violation of U.S. antitrust laws. The publishers all settled. Apple says it wants a trial. It claims that before it entered the digital book market, Amazon (AMZN) had a monopoly on e-books and was selling many of the most popular titles below cost. Apple also says that since it entered the market, the price of e-books has gone down, not up.

Samsung:

• In 1996, Chairman Lee was one of nine South Korean businessmen charged and convicted of bribing former President Roh Tae Woo. Lee said the money was a gift. Four of the businessmen were sent to prison. Lee received a suspended sentence and, later, a presidential pardon.
• In a second high-profile case in 2008, Lee was cleared of bribery charges but convicted of tax evasion and financial wrongdoing. He was fined 110 billion won (nearly $100 million) and given a 3-year suspended jail term. A few months later he got his second presidential pardon.
• In 2010 Samsung's former chief legal counsel published a book called Think Samsung that claimed Lee stole up to 10 trillion won ($8.9 billion) from Samsung subsidiaries, destroyed evidence, and bribed government officials to ensure the smooth transfer of power to his son.

See also: Did an Apple 2.0 story touch a nerve at Samsung HQ?

Posted in: Antitrust, Apple, Bribery, e-books, Lee Kun-Hee, Pardons, Samsung, Tim Cook

• Photomontage of the day: The world of wearable computers

  Forget those Galaxy S4 ads, says Credit Suisse, wearables are "the next big thing."

  FORTUNE -- Computers one wears, rather than carries in a briefcase, backpack or pocket, are at an "inflection point" -- a market poised to explode from $3 billion to $5 billion today to as much as $30 billion to $50 billion in three to five years.

  That's according to a Credit Suisse report snagged Friday by Barron's Tiernan Ray.

  The theory is that MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 18, 2013 9:39 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Barron's, Credit Suisse, Tiernan Ray, wearable computers, Wearables

• How devoted are Apple users to the Apple ecosystem?

  Very, according to a new Forrester survey. Microsoft and Google don't fare as well.

  FORTUNE -- According to a Forrester survey released this week, the vast majority of computer users (85% worldwide, 88% in the U.S.) have little or no loyalty to a particular mobile computing ecosystem -- the nexus of devices, software, services and sheer muscle memory that tie a user to one vendor or another.

  Among those users who show MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 18, 2013 6:57 AM ET
  Posted in: Android, Apple, Ecosystem, Forrester, Google, Microsoft, Mobile

• Galaxy S4: 10M in 4 weeks. iPhone 5: 5M in 3 days.

  When Apple reported record iPhone 5 sales, the stock began a six-month free fall.

  FORTUNE -- It's been years since Samsung reported any unit sales numbers at all for its mobile phones, so the tech press took notice Thursday when the South Korean manufacturing giant decided it had something to brag about.

  Samsung Electronics co-CEO Shin Jong-kyun told reporters at an industry forum in Seoul that he is confident shipments of the Galaxy S4 MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 17, 2013 10:31 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Business Insider, Galaxy 5S, iPhone 5, Samsung

• The big funds on Apple: Who bought and who sold last quarter

  Total shares held fell 5.2%, but more funds increased than reduced their Apple holdings.

  FORTUNE -- Any institution with more than $100 million in equities under management was required to file a Form 13f Wednesday telling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission what stocks they bought and sold last quarter, and once again Apple (AAPL) was the No. 1 equity in their portfolios.

  Although several news sites -- including CNBC, CBS and MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 17, 2013 9:46 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Funds, SEC Form 13f, Whale Wisdom

• Watch who Tim Cook talks to in the Washington press corps

  In advance of next Tuesday's Senate testimony, he softened the ground with interviews at Politico and the Washington Post -- but not, pointedly, the New York Times.

  FORTUNE -- Tim Cook is coming to Washington next week, summoned by the same Senate subcommittee that blasted Microsoft (MSFT) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ) last fall for funneling U.S. profits overseas to avoid paying U.S. taxes on them.

  But Apple's (AAPL) CEO -- whose company MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 17, 2013 6:35 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Senate, taxes, Tim Cook, Tom Coburn

• Tim Cook to testify on taxes: Did the N.Y. Times have it wrong?

  Next week we'll find out what a Senate probe of Apple's taxes has uncovered.

  FORTUNE -- According to the New York Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning iEconomy series, Apple (AAPL) has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid paying its fair share of taxes -- well beyond the usual tax reduction strategies U.S. corporations have long considered fair game.

  "Apple was a pioneer of an accounting technique known as the 'Double Irish With a Dutch MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 16, 2013 9:07 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Carl Levin, Hearing, New York Times, Pulitzer, Senate, Tim Cook

• Briefings of the day: U.S.A. vs. Apple Inc.

  In the DOJ's great e-book conspiracy, Apple is the sole defendant still standing.

  FORTUNE -- The conspiracy case that the U.S. Department of Justice filed against Apple and five book publishers in April 2011 is finally coming to a head.

  In the year that has passed, all five publishers have settled. Only Apple had the stomach -- or the wherewithal -- to take the case to trial.

  It's scheduled to begin in a MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 15, 2013 3:51 PM ET
  Posted in: Amazon, Antitrust, Apple, DOJ, e-books, Publishing

• Meet the man who figures Apple is worth $240 a share

  What does David Trainer know about Apple that nobody else does?

  FORTUNE -- At Credit Suisse, where he spent four years in the late 1990s, David Trainer was given what a former colleague called "a nearly impossible task -- teach and convince a department of 50+ very senior analysts a better way to think about valuing their companies."

  Now Trainer is trying to teach the rest of the world that "better way," MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 15, 2013 1:09 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, David Trainer, Return on invested capital, ROIC, valuation

• What Gartner says privately about Apple's next 3 years

  In a note to buy-side analysts, it suggests Apple will easily beat the Street's consensus.

  FORTUNE -- Not being a Gartner client or an analyst on the investment side, I've never been privy to the reports it sends its paying customers. But the spreadsheet above arrived in my inbox uninvited, and I figured I might as well share it with you.

  It comes from Andrew Neff, an analyst with the research firm's MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 15, 2013 11:43 AM ET
  Posted in: Andrew Neff, Apple, Gartner, Revenues