Elder brother of Samsung Group chairman dies at 84

Lee Maeng-hee, the elder brother of South Korea's Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, died on Friday at the age of 84 after a years-long battle with cancer.

The elder Lee, also the father of CJ Group Chairman Lee Jae-hyun, passed away at a hospital in Beijing where he was being treated for lung cancer that had spread to other parts of his body, said a CJ group official.

The elder Lee "passed away from a chronic disease at a hospital in Beijing as of 9:39 a.m. (Beijing time)," the CJ official said.

Another CJ official in Beijing said no funeral date has been set yet.

Samsung Group founder Lee Byung-chull had three sons, including Maeng-hee and Kun-hee, and five daughters.

Maeng-hee had once been designated the heir of Samsung Group in the early 1960s, but he fell out of favor with the Samsung founder after a fertilizer subsidiary of Samsung smuggled 56 tons of chemicals from Japan in 1966. 

Maeng-hee underwent lung cancer surgery in Japan in 2012, and had been staying in China to recover, sources said. Kun-hee also has been hospitalized at Samsung Medical Center in southern Seoul since May last year after suffering a heart attack.

While he had surgery to remove a third of his lung, the cancer spread to other parts of his body in the following year, driving him to receive radiation treatment in China and Japan.

The two had been involved in several legal disputes until Maeng-hee said he would not appeal a court decision that rejected his demand for a 940 billion won ($800 million) share of his sibling's inherited wealth.

The two never reconciled their relationship before Maeng-hee's death.