Seoul, Mar 24 (DPA): Scandal-plagued former Samsung Group head Lee Kun Hee returned to the company as chairman of Samsung Electronics Co nearly two years after he quit due to a conviction for tax evasion, company officials said Wednesday.

"Former chairman Lee has decided to return to the management of Samsung Electronics as chairman," Rhee In Yong, chief spokesman at Samsung Electronics, told Yonhap News Agency.

Lee's return comes less than three months after the South Korean government pardoned him to help boost the country's bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. The former Samsung chairman was reinstated as a member of the International Olympic Committee in February.

A group of high-ranking Samsung Group executives asked Lee to return to company management last month because of uncertainties in the global economy, which the tycoon accepted, Rhee told reporters.

Samsung Group, the nation's biggest business group, was embroiled in scandal in April 2008 when Lee was indicted on suspicion of using a vast network of bank accounts held under employees' names to stash a slush fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The secret bank accounts were allegedly used to evade inheritance taxes for wealth passed on to Lee's children, including his son Lee Jay Yong, who is chief operating officer of Samsung Electronics.

Lee was later found guilty of breach of trust over a bond deal in August 2009, fined 100 billion won ($89.2 million) and sentenced to a suspended three-year prison term.

Since his pardon, Lee had hinted he would return to Samsung management.

"Samsung is in crisis now and it should move forward," he was quoted as saying by the local JoongAng Ilbo newspaper.

At a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of his father, Samsung Group founder Lee Byung Chull, last month, Lee said he would "help out Samsung Electronics if needed."

Meanwhile, the South Korean city of Pyeongchang earlier this month submitted its third bid to host the Winter Olympics, an effort that Lee is expected to support.

Although Lee was reinstated to the IOC in February, he was reprimanded and suspended from sitting on any IOC commission for five years.

The IOC at the time said Lee had "violated the ethical principles set out in the Olympic charter and the IOC code of ethics" and "has tarnished the reputation of the Olympic movement."