Ministry reviews new penalties

Addressing efforts to consolidate financial reforms, the Ministry of Finance is mulling measures to toughen criminal penalties against financial criminals, forcing guilty bank officials to cough up embezzled funds and speed up the legal process to put white-collar thieves behind bars as soon as possible.

One such measure includes a recent proposal to abolish Article 56 of the Criminal Code put forth by the Ministry of Justice.

The article stipulates that, if several successive acts constitute like offenses, such successive acts may be considered to be one offense, but the punishment prescribed for such offense may be increased up to one half.

If the article is successfully abolished, prosecutors yesterday said that all offenders including white-collar criminals would be given heavier cumulative penalties in accordance with their multiple offenses.

"The new principle is one offense, one punishment," said Ching Chi-jen (慶啟人), a prosecutor at the justice ministry.

For example, under the proposal a person convicted of financial crimes and sentenced to a two years each for embezzlement and breach of contract will now have to serve the full four-year sentence instead of a reduced three-year sentence allowed under the to-be-abolished clause, Ching said.

"The new revision should be able to effectively toughen penalties," Ching said.

On Oct. 9, the Executive Yuan has approved the ministry's proposal along with other revisions to the Criminal Code pending an approval from the Judicial Yuan and a legislative approval.

Tsai Ching-you (蔡清遊), director of the criminal department at the Judicial Yuan, yesterday said that the judicial body finds no fault with the ministry's proposal to abolish the clause and should give its approval soon.

In addition to the proposed change to the Criminal Code, Ching said yesterday that finance ministry officials are also considering introducing heavier penalties to finance-related laws such as the Banking Law (銀行法) and the Securities and Exchange Law

(證交法).

The finance ministry reportedly has reached consensus with the justice ministry to increase criminal penalties when the involved amount of money reaches a certain level, to levy heavy fines in place of jail terms, to strictly review financial offenders who wish to be released on bail, the Chinese-language Liberty Times reported yesterday.

The government also aims to address bank-related identity theft and insider trading, the paper said, adding all revisions to the laws are expected to be completed by next April.

Endorsing the government's move to combat financial crimes, William Lin (林蒼祥), a professor of finance at Tamkang University, told Taipei Times that the government needs to take swifter actions against suspects who use other peoples' accounts to borrow money from banks and deliberately default their loans.

"Timing is very important. All suspected bank accounts should be frozen immediately before the money can be laundered during the tedious trials," Lin said.

Naming the chiefs of Taiwanese banks with high non-performing loans (NPLs) as nothing but "sophisticated bank robbers," Lin said those bankers should be brought to justice.

Lin also urged that the government should put teeth into its financial reform plan. To accelerate criminal investigations, Lin cited the US experience as an example, saying that all financial offenders should be asked to provide evidence to prove their innocence. Otherwise, they should all plead guilty, he said.