SEOUL: South Korea's top tycoons, including de-facto Samsung chief Lee Jae-Yong, struggled Tuesday to publicly defend their business practices before a parliamentary committee probing a corruption scandal that has riveted the nation.

In the first hearing of its kind for nearly 30 years, the publicity-shy heads of the South's eight largest conglomerates were grilled relentlessly over donations their companies made to dubious foundations controlled by Choi Soo-Sil, a close friend of President Park Geun-Hye.

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