SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s top court handed down a ruling on Thursday that could result in more prison time for Samsung’s de facto leader, who was freed last year after being jailed for bribing the country’s since-impeached president.

The Supreme Court ruled that an appeals court had underestimated the value of the bribes that Lee Jae-yong, Samsung’s vice chairman, also known as J.Y. Lee, had provided to former President Park Geun-hye and a friend of Ms. Park’s. Mr. Lee was released from prison in February of last year on the basis of the appeals court’s ruling.

The ruling Thursday could spell trouble for Mr. Lee and Samsung, a pillar of South Korea’s economy and one of the world’s largest technology companies, because it raises the possibility that he will be imprisoned again. The Supreme Court sent Mr. Lee’s case back to a lower court for retrial.

In August 2017, a Seoul district court sentenced Mr. Lee to five years in prison for offering 8.6 billion won, or $7 million, in bribes to Ms. Park and to Choi Soon-sil, a longtime friend of the president who was central to the bribery scandal that drove Ms. Park from office and led to her imprisonment.